Happy Again
by littleblackdress1
Summary: It is 1964 and Katey is all grown up. When she is on her way home from work one day, old faces start to appear, and Katey's story just may come out again.
1. Storming

Chapter 1, Storming.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the dirty dancing themes or characters. I also do not own Mr. Heckles, who is from Friends, but I have incorporated him into my story.

Five years later. 1964

A storm was coming. A cool breeze pulled at Katey Miller's long blonde hair, as if asking it to play. She tugged her hair back and twisted it into a restraining bun. Wind yanked drying leaves from an old maple tree that was too proud to willingly succumb to fall.

Katey Miller was standing on the terrace outside her New York City apartment. It was a little too large for Katey, with two bedrooms, but the spare room was perfect for when her sister Susie or her parents decided to stay. She lived on the second floor of an inexpensive, rent-controlled building. Large trees hung over her terrace, dropping leaves everywhere in the fall, but smelled wonderful in the spring.

Katey pulled the blanket tighter around herself, wishing it wasn't so cold. She moved away from the edge of the terrace and went into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. She threw the blanket onto the small island in the middle of the kitchen, grateful for the heat from the usually fluctuating radiator. She boiled water in a copper tea pot that had been a house warming present from her grandfather when she moved in the summer before. While the water was warming she sat on the kitchen counter and leaned back against the refrigerator. She pulled her knees under her chin and tried to collect her thoughts.

She had been woken up at one in the morning because of a dream that she now couldn't remember. It was there, just on the outskirts of her mind, and she couldn't quite remember. It was driving her insane. She looked around her apartment, hoping that something would jar her memory. It was painted a cool blue, and when she had moved in she had situated numerous house plants around it. The small kitchen she was now sitting in was next to the sunken living room. Bright purple asters were in a vase on the coffee table, and various magazines and old newspapers were on top of her new, color TV set. A fleece blanket was thrown over the couch and pictures cluttered the mantle over the fireplace. Katey slid off the countertop and walked over to the mantle. She traced a finger along the frame of one of her and Susie a few years ago. They had been at their parents lake house in the spring of '59. They looked almost like twins, with huge smiles and their hair the same way

If the picture had been just a little bit bigger it would have shown that Katey was visibly pregnant. The real Katey, the one who wasn't smiling now recollected the day the picture was taken completely, but was jolted out of her thoughts by the tea kettle whistling.

Katey poured the water into a yellow mug and poured the excess water into the sink. She dunked a peppermint tea bag in it and let it sit and steep. She twirled a spoon around in it and then poured in a little cream and a spoonful of sugar. She sat at the table in the dark, sipping her tea and blowing thoughts around in her head.

Rain was starting to fall. Katey could hear thunder, but there wasn't lightning yet. When she finished her tea she left the mug on the table to be cleaned tomorrow. On the way to her bedroom she passed the fireplace and picked up a picture that she must have turned over, but she couldn't remember why. Just then lightning flashed, illuminating the picture. She remembered now why she turned it over, and was reminded, unwillingly now, of her dream.

Javier.


	2. The Times

I do not own any of the Dirty Dancing themes or characters. I also do not own the few Friends things I have incorporated here.

The next morning Katey dressed in a white blouse and black skirt before leaving her apartment without breakfast. As she walked into the lobby downstairs, she remembered her jacket and walked up to her apartment again, now cursing herself for probably making herself late for work. She grabbed a black jacked from a chair next to her bed and left again, this time bringing an apple with her.

She ate in during the short walk to work; threw the core into a wastebasket outside and walked in.

"Ah, Miss Miller," her boss greeted her.

"Hello, Mr. Kirsch. It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?" she asked.

"That it is. Beautiful fall we've been having. I meant to ask you, have you finished your column yet? Mr. Peters wants it by lunchtime."

"Yes. I just need to proofread it."

"Excellent." he said, and walked off, probably to the senior staff room for an unneeded doughnut.

_Mr. Kirsch is nice enough_, Katey though to herself, _just a bit fake_. She walked into her office and silently closed the door behind her, grateful to be away from the noise outside her door. She had woken up with a splitting head ache.

For the last year, Katey had been working at the New York Times. Her father had gotten her the job soon after she graduated from Radcliff. At the time she had wanted to find her own job, but now she was grateful, as the pay was excellent. And as she had things to say. Lots of things.

After leaving Cuba she had been building everything up inside of her head. The only way to get everything out was writing to Javier.

Javier. The thought of him, now so unwelcome, jolted her made her bite the inside of her cheek painfully.

"Ow." she screwed up her face and rubbed her cheek, although it didn't help the pain much. She pulled her weekly column out of a folder on her desk and went at it with a pen. When she was done it was marked all over, radically different, and she was in the worst of moods. Her phone rang, jarring her head.

"This day just keeps getting better." she muttered as she picked up the phone.

"Hello?" she said with a sigh.

"Katey?" said the voice on the other end.

"Suze?"

"Yuh. I need to stay with you." said her sister, not a phone person.

"Why?"

"Can I come over?"

"What? It's 8:45 in the morning. I just got to work."

"Well, I got into a fight with my roommate and I have nowhere to go. Can I just crash at your place?"

"Yeah, sure. The spare key is--"

"Above the door. Thanks." she hung up the phone without a good-bye.

Katey stared at the phone, surprised by her sister's news and uncharacteristic abruptness. Susie usually had a reason to be at her place, and would explain in great detail, with great enthusiasm until she or Katey (usually Katey) got tired.

After work Katey went to the grocery store on the corner of her street before going home. The short walk was made difficult by the two heavy bags she was carrying in addition to her bulky purse. She leaned up against the wall of her building to straighten out the bags, when a man's voice startled her.

"May I help you with your bag, miss?"

Katey looked up, almost dropped the bags in shock.

"Oh--my god….It's _you."_


	3. Unexpected Encounters

Chapter 3, Unexpected Encounters

"Well, Miss Katey, I didn't expect to run into you here." James Phelps said.

"Nor I you. What--what're you _doing_ here?"

"In town on business," he said with his patented charming smile. "And yourself?"

"I live here."

"Let me help you with that." James said, picking up the bag she had set on the cement.

"No--don't--I--" but he already had.

"Can I help you get these home?"

Kateyhad "no, thank you" on the tip of her tongue, but it was a mixed bag. On the one hand, she wouldn't accidentally drop one of her bags and break a carton of eggs if she had help with them. But on the other hand, she would have to spend time with the lugubrious James Phelps. Fine.

"Sure. It's good to see you again." she said with an enthusiasm that she didn't feel.

"I'm good. And you?"

"Fine." she settled the bag onto her hip and started walking toward her building. He followed.

"It's been a while. How's your family?"

"Fine. Mom and Dad are still in St Lois. Susie goes to Columbia. I graduated from Radcliff."

"Impressive. Where do you work, are you married?"

Katey smiled.

"I work at the Times. I have a column and no, I'm not married. Yourself?"

"I work with a law firm in Seattle. I'm in town for a conference. Yes, I'm married," Katey looked at his left hand and now saw the gold band. "To Eve. You remember her, don't you?"

"How could I forget?"

"Have you heard what's happening in Cuba? It's awful."

Katey looked at him. He looked the same. The fall sunlight shown in his bright blue eyes. His hair was a bit different, but he was still the same James.

"Yes, it is awful," Katey said softly. "They all had so much hope."

When she had returned home from Cuba in 1959, she had read everything she could get her hands on about the goings-on in Cuba.

"Is this you?"

"What?" she asked. She had been thinking about Cuba, a subject that had been pushed from her mind long ago, but had returned the previous night.

"I asked if this is you." James was pointing to her apartment building.

"Yes, it is." she smiled at the doorman as she walked by. He tipped his hat to her.

They walked up the stairs chatting about their lives since they had seen each other last. When they reached her apartment, James asked the question Katey had hoped wasn't coming.

"Do you still write to…..your friend?"

Katey dug her key out of her purse, not looking at him and thinking of what to say.

"No, I don't. It's been so nice to see you again James, a real pleasure. Thank you for your help. We _must_ get together while you're still in town." Katey sounded just like her mother. She shook his hand, opened the door and set the bags inside.

"Yes, nice to see you too. May I have your number so I can check about getting together? Eve is here also, I'm sure she'd like to get together with you also."

Katey winced. She'd rather eat pins and die, but if she was rude to James, her mother might find out, and then there would be hell to pay. Jeanne Miler still liked to have her daughter within her reach, although she was an adult.

"Yes. Of course." Katie pulled her card out of her purse and gave it to him.

"Take care." he said as he walked away.

Katey smiled until he turned his back and then she gave him the finger.

"Damn you to hell, James." she said, still angry at him for what he did to her in Cuba.

"So, what'd he say?" Susie asked. Katey was sitting at the table hours later as Susie puttered around the kitchen making dinner. She knew her way around well; she stayed with Katey so often.

"Just asked how I was, what was going with everyone. He's married." Susie whirled around.

"To _who_? Who would marry that--"

"Eve. from Cuba. He said they met again three years ago. He works for her dad. Apparently it was love at first sight.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!" Susie squealed "Oh. I don't think your back left burner works."

"Nope. The super said he'd fix it in a few weeks."

"But how can you _live_?" asked Susie, who was majoring in culinary arts. Katey shrugged.

"I mostly live on take-out. I only went shopping today because you're here."

"Yeah, when I got here your fridge had nothing but a half-empty bottle of milk and enough condiments to feed Tuvalu."

"What's Tuvalu?"

"A country, stupid."

"Oh. He also said--" Katey was cut off by a knock at the door. She got up from her seat at the table and crossed the living room to answer the door. She answered it to find a man with wild gray hair and wearing a brown bathrobe standing at her door.

"You're doing it again." he said.

"Mr. Heckles, we weren't making any noise." Susie said from the kitchen, used to Katey crazy downstairs neighbor.

"You're disturbing my ferrets. They're breeding."

"Mr. Heckles, you don't _have _ferrets." Katey said.

"I could have ferrets."

"Good-bye, Mr. Heckles." Katey slammed the door.

"You owe me baby ferrets." he said through the closed door.

She sighed and pushed a hand through her hair, her eyes closed.

"Everyday," she said. "Everyday."

"He's just hoping that one day you'll answer the door in a towel." Susie said absently. Katey smiled.

"Did he ask about Javier?" Susie asked while they were eating dinner. Katey put down her fork.

"Do we always have to talk about him?" Katey asked quietly.

"No, we never talk about him. You don't, at least. You haven't talked about  
him in years."

"That's because I don't want to." Katey said, picking at her wild rice.

"Katey, it's been _five years_. You have to move on."

"I have moved on."

"Fine. When was the last time you went on a date?" Susie asked.

"Last week I went to the movies with a guy named Steve." This was only half true. She had gone out with Steve, but it had been two months ago.

"Steve The Lizard Man? _That's so gross_! I met him; he's the one that breeds iguanas in his _closet_. How could you have gone out with Steve The Lizard Man?"

"It was only once. And he was nice." He was nice. And she didn't mind the lizard thing that much. He was sweet, and gentlemanly."

"Fine, then how come it was only once, huh?" Susie pressed, her voice getting louder.

"Because--" Katey was interrupted by a banging noise. It was Heckles below them, banging on his ceiling with a broom. She and Susie stomped on the floor instinctively.

"Because you're still in love with Javier, admit it!" Katey got up and washed her plate in the sink. She put it in the dish rack and went into her room, slamming the door. She could hear Susie slam the door of the other bedroom. Heckles pounded on his ceiling once more and the girls both stomped, although neither one knew the other had.

Katey sat on her bed, trying not to cry. She hugged a pillow to her chest and pulled out a shoebox from under her bed. She opened it and pulled out a picture that she hadn't looked at in months, maybe years.

She and Javier smiled happily in it. It was the last night they'd seen each other, and they looked so…..wonderful. They both looked elated dancing together. Katey shoved the picture back into the box and kicked the box off the bed. It spilled onto the floor, a picture of Javier was facing up. Katey turned away and buried her face in a pillow and cried.

Javier was the beautiful Cuban boy she'd tried so hard to forget. She had been almost empty when she met him, and he had introduced her to a world she never knew existed. He had taught her about Cuban dancing and how to dance. And how to love. She remembered the first time she'd seen him, when she knocked into him and spilled the tray of drinks he'd been carrying. She remembered Eve, who'd insulted him. She remembered so many things, but they all ran together in her head. Things were starting to get to Katey again. She hadn't thought of Cuba in so long. Why had she had that dream?


	4. The Beginning

Chapter 4, The Beginning.

When Katey and Javier were separated, they wrote everyday. Long letters about how they would see each other again. But then it got harder and harder to send things to Cuba, and it got harder and harder to get things out. In the shoebox Katey kept of her things from Javier, she kept all of his letters, including his last one.

_My dearest Katey, _it said

_You have no idea how much it pains me to say this, all of this. But I have to. Every letter of yours that I get, it brightens my day. You are such a good letter writer. You should be a real writer! How are your parents, and Susie? She'll be something some day, let me say. She has your spirit. But you, how are you? I hope you are well. Your last letter said that you are sick, are you better now? I hope so. As much as it pains me to say this, I have to. Things are not getting better here. Castro is worse. Carlos is in the secret police, although I don't know why. He would know if I kept writing to you. Correspondence with America is not allowed. He would turn me in, Katey. I feel like such a coward, saying this, but I have to stop writing to you for now, and I ask that you will do the same. One day, Katey, we will meet again. I know it._

_Yours forever,_

_Javier_

_P.S. I will wait for you._

Katey remembered the first time she had read that letter. She didn't cry, which was odd. After returning from Cuba, she had become incredibly emotional.

The next week she found out that she was pregnant. She fought with herself, wondering if she should write to Javier and tell him. She fought with herself for six months, while her parents fought with her to put the baby up for adoption.

But she couldn't. This baby would be all that she had left of Javier. And she couldn't tell him, could she? He would try his best to come to America, wanting to see his baby. And she couldn't make him leave his home. His family was there. His life was there. He belonged there. And she didn't. She couldn't just disturb his life. And….maybe he didn't want her to. Maybe the letter wasn't for his safety. Maybe he didn't want to wait.

Katey had been thinking of that when she was driving one night. Her dad had asked her to go out for groceries, and on her way back, she was thinking of Javier and got distracted.

She got into an accident. She hadn't been thinking and let the car drift onto the other side of the road. She ended up ramming into a tree

_**Flashback.**_

There were voices above her.

"Will she be okay, doctor?" Her dad was there.

The sheets in the hospital bed were pulled tight around her. She felt like she was in a coffin. A radio was on somewhere. She heard someone talking about baseball. She drifted in and out of conciseness for a week. Sometimes Susie was there. She could here her talking high and fast.

Javier was there. She felt his hand on her face, his breath on her skin, whispering her name.

"Katey," he was saying. "Katey, I need you. Your family needs you. Te amo, Katey." he sounded like he was about to cry.

Katey sat straight up in bed.

"Javier?"

But he wasn't there. Susie was there.

"Oh my God, Katey! We were so worried! Mom! Dad!" her parents came into the room. She was smothered with hugs and kisses and apologies from her father.

"Is….is…the baby okay?" she whispered. Susie and her parents looked at each other.

"Katey….you lost the baby." her mother said in a soothing voice.

"What?" Katey fell back against the pillows. Her head clunked against the wall and pained rocketed through the back of her skull.

"But…we made the nursery. I had names picked…." she lay down and pushed her head under the pillow, hiding from them.

When she first found out that she was pregnant, her parents were furious. Her mother wanted her to get rid of it, until a doctor explained the risks of abortion. Then she had pounced on Katey to give it up. She had tried to explain, subtly, that in their world there was no place for unwed teenage mothers. So Katey went and stayed with her grandmother in Massapequa until it was time to start Radcliff.

She was not a popular student. Teachers were cold to her and other girls shunned her. She didn't mind it much. Before, in St. Lois she hadn't been very popular. She was too…bookish, too awkward. So she threw herself into her schoolwork and making plans for the baby's arrival. She could almost see herself with a baby. She imagined herself sitting in an apartment in New York, with a baby on her lap. But there was always one thing missing.

Javier.

After she left the hospital she wrote to him and explained everything. About the baby mostly, but a little about herself. She said how she stopped dancing, because it seemed worthless without him. She told him that sometimes she would have nightmares, but them they ended with him being there, comforting her. She didn't mention that that made everything worse. For five pages she went on, until her pen went out of ink and her mind went dry. She mailed the letter, but he never wrote back. Maybe he didn't get it. Maybe it never reached him

But maybe, said a voice in the back of her head. Maybe he just doesn't care. Maybe he has a new life, one built without you in it.

And then she resigned herself to that thought. She pushed all of the memories from Cuba away. All of the clothes that she had worn there, and the dress her mother had had specially made for the dance final, were shoved into her closet back home. All of the film reels, the pictures, everything had been slowly and carefully edged out of Katey's life in New York. She built her life to keep thoughts of him out. And it had worked. Until now.

A year back Katey had been riding the bus home from St. Lois when a man asked if the seat next to her was taken. She moved her bag and he sat down. His name was Dave. They had hit it off and she discovered that he lived in New York, too.

He asked for her number, and they clicked. He was exactly the opposite of Javier, from looks to personality, which might have been why he appealed to Katey so. She could only imagine what Javier would think, but she put it out of her mind. Dating Dave was an escape from missing Javier.

She didn't tell anyone about Dave, and she didn't know why. She had a hard time keeping him from Susie, but she did. He was an extremely popular writer who traveled around the globe; her parents would have loved him, had they been informed of his existence.

She broke up with him the day after Christmas. She hadn't really planned to, but she had just gotten into a fight with her parents and was in a funk. That night he asked her out to dinner, and when she got there he asked her to marry him. She broke up with him then.

She dated a little after that, but not much.


	5. Lives Anew

Chapter 5, Lives Anew

Katey awoke the next morning to find Susie at the stove making omelets.

"Morning." she said, without turning around.

"Morning," Katey said. "It's freezing in here." she flopped onto the sofa and pulled the fleece blanket over top of herself.

"I know," Susie said, flipping an omelet on the stove. "Your radiator isn't working. I went down to the super before, and he said he'd send someone up on Monday." Susie slid two omelets out of the pan and onto two plates. Katey got up from the couch, the blanket still pulled tight around her, and opened the fridge and got out the orange juice. She poured some into two tall glasses and began to set the table. A banging sound came from Heckles' apartment. They stomped instinctively.

Later, she and Susie were finishing breakfast. Katey twirled her fork in her long, pale fingers.

"Hey, Suze?" she asked.

"Hmm?" she looked up from her plate.

"You didn't really have a fight with your roommate, did you?" Susie shrugged. "Suze." Susie got up and washed her plate in the sink.

"I came for a reason. I have to tell you something." she said slowly.

"What?" Katey asked. Susie fingered a trailing strand of ivy handing from a pot on the counter.

"This is nice."

"_Suze_."

"Fine. I wanted to know if I could move in with you."

"I thought Mom and Dad wanted you to stay on campus until your junio--Susie that isn't it. What? Why don't you just tell me?" Katey in turn cleared her plate and silverware and began to wash them. She set them in the rack to dry and turned to face her sister, who was now standing in front of the fireplace, admiring the pictures on the mantle.

"This is nice." she pointed to a Christmas card picture of them and their parents six years earlier, taken in their house in St. Louis.

"Susie." Katey sat on the couch and pulled her legs underneath herself.

"Fine." Susie flopped into a wing-back chair facing Katey, her arms hanging over the side. Katey moved the blanket so that it covered her exposed feet.

"A couple days ago I was visiting Mom and Dad," Susie said slowly.

"And…." Katey prompted.

"And while I was there they got a letter. It was for you."

"From who?" Katey asked. Susie held up one finger and disappeared into her room. A few second later she returned with a slender envelope with familiar, small and loopy hand script on the front, which she handed to Katey.

"from Javier." Susie sat down again.

Katey turned the letter over in amazement. She had never expected…..this feeling. Everything was coming back to her.

"Go." Susie said softly.

"What?" Katey asked.

"Go. You have to go. He wouldn't be writing unless he needed you. And you want to go. I know you do. You love him. Say it."

"I--can't--" Katey said, choked with tears.

"What? You can't what? Go or love him or say it? But you _can_ Katey. You think you can't do things but you can!" Katey, who had been walked toward her bedroom, turned around.

"You don't know, Susie! You don't know! You don't know how much it hurt to lose him. You don't know how much it hurt to lose the baby. You don't know what it's like to have left myself in Cuba! Because you can't! I left part of myself there, and if I go back, I'll have to get it back. I can't do that now!"

"He needs you! He needs your help! Javier is the most cocky guy I've ever know, and it must have killed him to write you, asked for your help. Maybe I don't know, Katey, maybe I've never been in love. But I do know that you cry yourself to sleep at night because you miss him! I know you love him!" she stopped, out of breath from yelling. Katey waited. "You're on your own for this one, Katey. I've tried to help you, but you just push me away. You push _everyone_ away! You have no boyfriend, no friends, and I know that the only people you talk to during the day are your boss and --- and--- Heckles! So fine, Katey. I'm leaving. I didn't read the letter and nether have you. Read it and then go. You have to.

And most importantly, you have to say that you love him. Because it's killing you not admitting it to yourself. I'm going home." Katey ran into her room and slammed the door.

A few minutes later se heard the door of the apartment slam. Katey slowly pushed open the door to find the apartment empty. The silence and the finality of Susie's last words was deafening.

"I need to get a cat." Katey said to the empty room.

It was Saturday, and Katey had nowhere to go.

She and Susie would usually go for lunch on Saturday's between Susie's 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock classes, but today Susie would have nothing to do with Katey.

"She's right," Katey thought to herself. "Maybe I do shut people out. But I don't mean to."

Katey was soaking in the bathtub with the book _Wuthering Heights_ when the phone rang.

"Dammit." Katey said. She got out of the tub and wrapped a towel around herself before reaching for the phone in her bedroom.

"Hello?" Katey asked.

"Katey dear? Oh, I'm glad I caught you. It's Eve Phelps. James told me how you two ran into each other yesterday and I thought that we _must _get together. Are you free tonight? What about the Liley Bistro at eight, say?"

Katey was taken aback by Eve's fast talking.

"Well….yes, I'd love to." A warning signal went off in the back of Katey's mind. But she had to accept. It would be rude to refuse.

"Lovely! We'll see you then. Bye-bye.

"Bye." Katey said, and hung up the phone.

Her radiator wasn't working again, and it was freezing outside for early November. Her fist instinct was to get right back under her covers again and try to sleep the day away, but instead she decided to go to the coffee house down the street. She dressed in a plain blouse an black skirt, and she wrapped her jacket tight around herself before she left.

She slipped the unread letter into her purse.

In the coffee house she armed herself with a latte and chocolate scone before opening the letter.

_But I don't have to open it. _She thought. _If I do, everything will come back, and my world will have a crack right down the middle. And I'll worked so hard to keep Javier and everything about him separate from my life._

So she put it off. She had finished her scone and drank her latte, and was still debating as to whether or not she should open it. So she gathered up her things and went home again, the letter still unopened.

By this time it was dinnertime, and Katey began to dread meeting James and Eve. At 7:45 she couldn't stand it anymore and called the restaurant.

"Hi. This is Katey Miller. Could you please inform Mr. And Mrs. Phelps that I have fallen ill and are unable to join them this evening. Oh, and that I express my utmost apologies. Thanks." Katey hung up the phone and lay back onto the soft pillows of her bed. She reached for the letter and opened it.


	6. It's A Ling Ride to Missouri

Chapter 6, It's A Long Ride To Missouri

_Beautiful Katey,_

_I can't even begin to describe to you why it has taken me so long to write this letter. I myself do not know, except that I was scared. Scared that you have moved on. That you have a family, a husband who loves you. And if so, congratulations. I'm sure that you make a wonderful wife. But if not, please remember me fondly. I said that I would wait for you, and I meant it. I love you, Katey Miller._

_Always yours_

_Javier_

Susie was right. He did need…..something. Katey just couldn't figure out what. She recognized the reference to the Phantom of the Opera, and it puzzled her. Javier didn't seem the type to be able to sit through and opera, but maybe he had changed in five years. She wanted to put the letter back in the envelope and forget all about it, but she couldn't. Not now, not after she knew that he needed her, that he loved her. And that she loved him.

On Monday Katey came into work and was immediately summoned to Mr. Peter's office. She knocked timidly and was asked to come in by a booming voice. Katey was nervous; she hoped she wasn't about to be fired.

"Ah, Ms. Miller, please sit down," said Mr. Peters. She did so. "Mr. Kirsch has informed me that you are a diligent worker and a cracker jack reporter. I myself have read your column a few times and I agree. Which is why I hope that you will not refuse what I am going to ask you," he paused. "I've been informed that you have a personal history with Cuba."

"Yes, I lived there for a short time." Katey said, puzzled as to where this was going.

"Then I'm sure you are aware of the recent upsets there. I'm asking you if you would accept a job to go there and report on it. Now, I'd understand completely if you refuse, since others have already turned down the job." he stopped, waiting for her reply.

"I…yes. Of course. I would love to," Katey said, with more enthusiasm than she felt. "For how long?"

"from Friday until December."

"That's….a while."

"Yes. But it was the only time that we could arrange a flight. They are very had to find these days. What with the _problems_ the late President Kennedy started. You're free to go home now and make arrangements, if you wish.

"Yes….yes, I think I will." Katey got up from her chair, stunned that they were sending her to Cuba. This would mean a huge bonus and maybe even a promotion, but was it worth it? Well, it didn't matter now. She had already accepted.

Katey walked home, stunned.

"I should probably go home to tell Mom and Dad." she thought. And she did.

The next day Katey was in a cab from the airport to her parents house.

"Is this it, Miss?" asked the driver.

"Pardon?" she asked, she had been daydreaming.

"The red brick on with the garden."

"Yes." the cab pulled to a stop in front of her childhood home. The driver helped her get her bag out of the car and she paid him, and he drove off. Katey picked up her suitcase and unlatched the gate. She walked up to her old home, which once seemed so beautiful, now seemed incredibly imposing. The flowers that her mother usually tended to with great care were now all withered, and her father's prize cherry tress were bare. She climbed the wooden steps and put her bag down in front of the door. She put her hand out to ring the doorbell, but drew it back.

She hadn't talked to her parents in months. Her pregnancy had caused an unbridgeable rift between herself and her parents. She hadn't seen or spoken to them since Christmas. Neither party wanted to take the first step, and although they still loved her dearly, they just wanted her to be the Katey they had before Cuba. Before, she had been a straight-A student, with acceptances to the best colleges, the brightest futures. Even though she now had a very prestigious job and everything she could have ever hoped for, they still felt as if she had let them down somehow.

So Katey instead sat on the bench next to the door, and pulled her legs underneath her chin. _It is early, they might not even be awake yet,_ she thought. _I still have time._ Her time ran out a half-hour later when her father came outside to get the paper and spotted her.

"Katey? Wh--what are you doing here?"

"Hi, Daddy."

He ushered her inside and she swept off her hat and coat. The house looked the same, with the beautiful crystal candleholders on the table by the stairs, and the large gilt mirror above it.

"House looks nice." she said as her mother came down the stairs.

"Bert? Bert Susie's asking if--Katey!" Jeanne Miller spotted her eldest daughter.

"Susie's here?" Katey asked. On cue, Susie appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing her lacey silk nightgown. She ran down the stairs and grabbed Katey's wrist and dragged her up the stairs

"Katey--what--?" her parents were asking.

"She'll explain later!" Susie called over her shoulder. Katey was dragged into the spare bedroom and the third floor, which had been turned into a nursery and was the only place in the house that they couldn't be overheard.

"I _knew_ it!" Susie shrieked. "I _knew_ you'd come and tell Mom and Dad you were going to Cuba! Ha-ha! And I'm coming, too!" Katey, who had been wandering around the room, was startled by this.

"What? No. I'm not going because of Javier. I'm going because of my job.

They're sending me."

"Ooooh, you_ lie._" Susie said, almost happily.

"No. Really." Katey touched the crib that had been diligently set up by her father. Nothing about the room had changed since she left. The light yellow walls had faded a bit, and there was dust on the book shelf that held many children's books from the girls' childhood, but it was the same.

"Suze, they'll never let you come. You have school."

"So? I can get my work from my professors. I can say that I'm going on an educational trip, to study Cuban food. They'll let me go."

"What about Mom and Dad? They won't even let you drive. They'll never let you come to Cuba with me."

"Yes, they will. They won't want you going at all, least of all alone. So they'll enlist my help."

"Not true." Katey sat on the bed next to her sister.

"Come on," Susie stood up an grabbed her sister's hand. "You are coming with me. Susie dragged her down the stairs and into Katey's old room. She opened her closet and threw all of the clothes Katey had in Havana onto the bed,

"No--Susie."

"Yes Susie. If you're going back, you have to wear these when you get there."

"Girls!" Their mother was calling from downstairs. "Can you two come down here a moment please?" The two of them trooped downstairs.

A few minutes later Katey was sitting on the couch in the living room facing her parents. Susie had been banished to the kitchen, but Katey could see her lying on the floor, listening through the crack between the floor and the door separating the living room from the kitchen.

"House looks nice." Katey said.

"It hasn't changed." Jeanne said, not meaning to but sounding cold to her daughter.

"Katey, how's work?" her father asked.

"Fine. That's actually why I'm here," Katey paused and looked around the living room. It hadn't changed. There were roses in a bowl on the kitchen table, and the house palm was still sitting on a marble end table in the corner of the room. "My boss--the editor actually, asked me to go to Cuba. To report on what's going on." Katey watched an identical look of shock register on her parents' faces. "And I said yes. He though that I would be an asset, since we lived there."

"But--_why_? Katey, it's _dangerous_."

"Yes, but it pays well, but I'd have to miss the Thanksgiving party." Every year her parents threw an elaborate party and invited all of their relatives. Her mother looked at her strangely for a moment.

"You're going because of Javier, aren't you? That boy asked you to come back and now you're going to risk your life to--"

"Mom! I'm not going back because of him! My boss is sending me."

"Like hell he is! You were willing to throw it all away for that boy, and now here you are, doing it again! Well Katey, you can't go, I forbid it!" Both Katey and Jeanne were on their feet now, separated by the coffee table.

"Jeanne, Katey has to go. The paper's sending her." Bert tugged at his wife's hand; always the one to try to break up fights.

"You still love him, and now you're going to go back and try to find him, even though he ignored you when he found out that you were pregnant!"

"That's it. I'm going home. I'll call you when I get back." Katey said calmly and started to walk out of the room. Just then the door to the kitchen swung open and Susie walked in.

"Mom, how can you say that! Katey has put every bit of anything that reminds her of Cuba away and out of her life! And even if she did still love him, what's so wrong with that, Mom? Huh?"

"She has a life, Susie. She can't throw it away." Jeanne said, now sitting next to her husband.

"Yes, but not a good life. She has no friends, no boyfriend, all she ever thinks about is work, why can't she love Javier? She's _unhappy_ Mom! But you don't see it! You just want her to be the daughter that you want, you don't care why! Well, she's going to Cuba, and I'm going too!"

"Oh no--" Katey left the room unnoticed. She could hear her sister and parents arguing all the way up the stairs.

She sat on her bed and thought about what Susie had been trying to say. Was she really unhappy? Not really. Everything had been fine until a few days ago. Besides her relationship with Dave, she hadn't dated much. She sometimes went out with men she met at work; she had a few friends. She dated a little, mostly blind dates that her work friends set her up with. But she almost never went on second dates; never third.

She picked up her old school uniform, a heavy, coral colored dress. Se opened up her old suitcase and carefully folded the dress and set it inside. She proceeded to do the same with all of her other old clothes, until every memory she had from her days in Cuba was out in the open. She packed them all, and retrieved her suitcase from the front hallway downstairs.

She left unnoticed; her family was still arguing. She felt a pang of guilt that she had started all of this; maybe she should have just left a phone message and then got on a plane and left.

When she got back home, she found a message from work that all of her arrangement had been made, and that all she had to do was get to the plane. She started to pack, but when she was half done she decided to go for a walk.

She walked past the small playground a few streets away and watched the children playing with their parents. She wondered what her life would be like if she had had the baby. Would she still have graduated, have gotten her job? Would she be going to Cuba still? Maybe. As she walked back to her apartment building she wasn't thinking and bumped into a woman in a furry red coat.

"Oh--I'm sorry." she said, looking up

"Quite alright." said the woman. "Oh, Katey? Oh, how nice to see you again. James, look who it is."

"Eve?" Katey asked incredulously. But it was, and James. Of all the coincidences.

"Oh, Katey, hello again." James said, appearing as if out of thin air. Katey was at a loss for words for a minute.

"Uh, would you like to come in for lunch? I was just about to make something." Katey said. The pair looked at each other.

"We would love to." James said.

A few minutes later they were sitting in Katey's living room drinking coffee. Katey was in the kitchen, trying to make pasta and garlic bread.

"Congratulations on your…um marriage," Katey said. "When was the

wedding?"

"July 24." Eve said. Katey smiled and nodded. They made small talk over dinner, and when Mr. Heckles banged on his ceiling Katey ignored it and dismissed the noise a the pipes. At the end of diner, Eve brought up the subject of Katey's work.

"Well, actually I'm going on a business trip on Friday."

"Oh, really? To where?" James asked.

"Cuba, of all places."

"_Cuba_? Why on earth would you want to go to _Cuba_?" Eve asked, laughing.

"Well, I didn't really have much of a choice. They asked me, and I said yes."

"Do you still keep in touch with your friend from Cuba?" Eve asked innocently. "The waiter. What was his name again?" Katey saw through Eve's innocent façade. James must have told her what Katey said.

"Actually, I got a letter from him a few days ago." Katey said.

The rest of lunch went off without Katey being insulted in any way. Eve and James left and Katey was washing the dishes when someone pounded on the door.

"I'm not making any noise, Mr. Heckles!" Katey called from the sink. But he kept banging on the door. Katey stopped the running water and dried her hands on a dishtowel before marching over to the door and flinging it open.

"Alright Heckles, what--"

"Tadaa!" Susie said. Katey stared. Her sister was wearing something new and completely inappropriate for New York in the fall it looked more like clothes for--

"Cuba!" Katey asked "They're letting you come to Cuba?"

"That's right."

"_Why_?"

"I don't even know. Finally I wore them down, and here I am. You and I leave Friday, right? Here, help me get my bags inside." Katey, lost for words, helped her sister move her _three_ bags inside.

"Suze, how much stuff do you need? And what is in this bag, rocks?"

"No, a stove."

"What?"

"You know, one of those tiny ones, with only two burners. I want to see if I can learn to cook Cuban food when we get there."

"Susie….."

"Just go pack, Katey."

"But--"

"Just do it."

She did as she was told. Susie was making dinner when Katey walked into the kitchen.

"Are you excited to see Javier?" Susie asked.

"I--I'm not sure if I'm going to see him." Katey said, squeezing past her sister with a watering can to water the plants.

"**_What_**? You _have_ to see him, Katey!"

"Well, I'm just not sure I will right away. I have time to think about it." Katey paused and sprinkled water over a butterfly orchid that had been a birthday present from her cousin Aurelia.

"Katey…..can't you just say that you love him?" Susie asked softly. Katey stopped, her back to her sister.

"I'll know when I see him," she turned around. "And thanks."

"For what?" Susie was stirring something in a pot and looked at her sister.

"For sticking up for me. You know I haven't gotten along well with Mom and Dad since…..a while."

"Yeah. When was the last time you saw them before yesterday, anyway?"

"Christmas."

"Wow. You didn't even go back for Mom's birthday?"

"No. I wasn't invited. Even if I was, I probably just would have said that I had to work. That's what Mom told Dad." They were silent for a moment.

"You're still their favorite, you know."

"What?" Katey sat in a kitchen chair. "No, I'm not."

"Yuh-huh. They're proud of you. They don't like that I want to be a chef. They think I should be a lawyer or a teacher or something, or else just get married."

"That's so stupid." Katey said softly. Susie shrugged and poured chicken noodle soup into two bowls before setting the table.

While they were eating they heard a knock at the door.

"Go away Heckles!" Susie yelled.

"It's your parents." Came a voce from beyond the door.

"Oh--shi--" Katey jumped up and ran over to the door. She opened it to find her parents standing there, looking severely perturbed.

"Hi." Katey said. "Eh--come in." She picked up one of their bags and set it next to Susie's.

Susie made more soup and they all ate dinner together in silence.

"Did you have a nice flight?" Katey asked.

"It was uneventful." Bert said.

"That's nice." Katey said. There was knock on the door. The girls sighed. Katey got up and answered the door.

"You're doing it again." Mr. Heckles said.

"Mr. Heckles, we weren't making any noise."

"You're disturbing my oboe practice."

"You don't play the oboe."

"I could play the oboe."

"Goodbye Mr. Heckles." Katey closed the door.

"You owe me an oboe." he said. Through the door.

"Who was that?" asked her mother.

"Oh, that was just my crazy downstairs neighbor. He always thinks we're making noise," Katey picked up her fork. "I don't mean to be rude, but why are you here?"

"I came to give you my blessing," Jeanne said. "After Susie left I realized how rashly I'd spoken, and I came to apologize and to tell you to have fun in Havana."

"Oh--I--thank you. But we don't leave until Friday."

"Well, we're going back to St. Lois tomorrow morning anyway."

"Oh. Would….would you like to stay here tonight?"

"Yes, thank you."

Susie cleaned up dinner while Katey and her parents sat in the living drinking coffee and talking calmly for what seemed like the first time in months.

"Your apartment is beautiful, Katey." Jeanne said, looking around.

"Thank you. Aurelia came and helped me decorate it when I moved in."

"It must be nice to have a terrace."

"Yes, it's nice for growing plants when it's warm, and Susie grows herbs out there."

"Does Susie visit a lot?" Bert asked.

"Yes, we go out for lunch every Saturday, and some nights she stays over before she goes to class. Most of the time she's nice enough to cook for me."

"That's nice." said her mother.

They stayed in the spare bedroom that night, and Susie slept on the couch. They left the next morning before breakfast, and Susie sat in the big blue chair while Katey was folding the blankets Susie had used the night before.

"You're lucky, you know," Susie said. "I think."

"What do you mean?" Katey put a blanket into the closet next to the

apartment door.

"That Javier loves you so much after five years. Most people never get love like that."

"Susie, I don't even know if….if he waited for me like he said he would."

"But you said that he said so in the letter."

"Yes, but…"

"Don't you trust him? Love him?"

"Yes."

"You love him?"

"I can't do this." she turned and walked towards her room. "You don't get it, Suze. You just don't understand."

Katey went into her room and lay facedown on the bed.

Katey dozed in an out of sleep for hours. How well she remembered Javier, the beautiful Cuban boy she'd fallen in love with. He had led her, sometimes kicking, onto the path of being exactly who she wanted to be. He had shown her that she didn't always have to be so afraid.

He was free and wonderful and had introduced her to the beautiful world of Cuban dance. And she had loved it. He said that she helped him, but she never saw how that was possible. He had helped her.

Katey was afraid that if she saw him, he would find out that she didn't dance anymore, that she hadn't since she last saw him. That was too painful without him being the one twirling her, dipping her, catching her.

She dreamt about him last night. She dreamt that he was next to her in bed, that he was whispering to her in Spanish. She had her hand in his ebony hair, and was looking into his warm, chocolate eyes.

"Te amo, bonita Katey." he whispered (I love you, beautiful Katey.)

"I don't know what I'd be without you Javier--" she touched his face, sure it wasn't just a dream.

But it was, and then he was gone.


	7. Close, But No Cigar

Chapter 7, Close But No Cigar

Katey and Susie left for the airport Friday morning, before the sun came up. It was freezing, and since the girls had dressed for the warm Cuban weather, they were doubly cold. When they boarded the plane Susie was surprised at its small size and lack of other passengers. There were only three others.

"Cuba's not really a prime travel location right now, Suze. Probably everyone on this plane is going there on business."

After the plane lifted off, Susie turned to Katey, who had been staring out the window.

"Are you going to tell Javier about Dave?" she asked.

"What? How'd--"

"He called once while you were in the shower. I picked up the phone."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I figured you're tell me when you wanted to. Why'd you turn him down?"

"He told you about the proposal?" Susie nodded. "I don't really know. I don't regret it, but… I just didn't feel ready to get married. Or to say I loved someone that much. Anyone."

The flight was long. Katey was nervous and Susie was excited. It was almost dark when they stepped off the plane and were met by a rush of hot air. Katey inhaled deeply. It smelled the same, except that there was a foreign smell in the air. A hint of gunpowder.

"It's so beautiful!" Susie squealed, squeezing Katey's hand. Katey only nodded. "Do you remember where we're staying?" Susie asked. Katey fished a slip of paper out of her pocket.

"Hotel Oceana." How could she have forgotten? Susie had her head out the window of the car the paper had gotten for them the whole time.

"Susie stop it, you look like a dog." Katey said.

"So? Oh, it's so beautiful! I can't wait to go to some clubs!" Susie had been fifteen when they lived there for the short period of time in 1958. She had expressed her outrage at not being able to go to any of the places Katey went. _Except when she came with Javier and me to La Rosa Negra when he was teaching me to dance._ The hotel was as beautiful as ever when they pulled up. Men in green uniforms opened the doors for them, and inside they walked up to the reception desk, which was in front of an enormous fish tank.

"Hello. I have a room under the name Katey Miller." she said to the man at the desk.

"Second floor and on the left." said the smiling man as he handed her a key. The girls thanked him and followed the bellman to their suit.

It was beautiful. Susie tipped the bellman as Katey looked around. It was the same layout as they had had when they were in Cuba last. She and Susie decided to share a bedroom, even though they had two. They ordered room service for dinner, despite Susie protests about going out to eat.

"I think pasta is all I can handle for now, Suze." Katey said. She went to bed early that night; she had to interview government officials the next day.

Before going to the government buildings, Katey went down to the front desk and asked if Yolanda still worked there. She had been such a good friends to Katey, and she knew that she would regret it if she left without seeing Yolanda.

They, thanks to the nice man at the front desk, met for an early lunch.

They talked about how much their lives had changed. Yolanda was now the head of matenence staff at the hotel, and was married and was trying to have a baby. She also kept hinting that she was still friends with Javier. Katey hoped that that had nothing to due with the baby part.

They promised to meet again soon and parted with a hug.

After that, the first part of Katey's day was long and boring. She spent it talking to people who didn't want to talk to her. She and Katey agreed to meet at the hotel before going to lunch. Katey slid in through the door of the room at half past noon. Susie was sitting on the couch in the living room, trying to read a paper in Spanish.

"How was your day?" she called when she heard Katey come in. Katey threw her purse on the floor and flopped down next to her sister on the chintz couch.

"Hot. Boring. I spent the day talking to crazy communists. That answer your question?"

"No wonder you were hot. Why are you wearing that?" Susie looked at her sister's outfit, which consisted of a long black skirt and white blouse.

"I know. It's worse then those awful school uniforms," they laughed. "But I didn't have any light clothes that were appropriate for interviews. I have to go shower." She slowly dragged herself into the bathroom. She was grateful for the cool water that poured over her head when she turned on the shower.

After she was freshly showered and had changed into a blue halter dress, Katey came out to find Susie still reading the paper.

"Why are you reading that?" she asked as she checked her makeup in the mirror.

"I'm learning Spanish in school."

They spent the day going to all of the places that they knew: The Palace, their old school, and they lounged by the pool. Susie was watching the waiters, but Katey was watching the birds flit about and wondering how to contact Javier.

That night after dinner, Susie was sitting on Katey's bed when she got out of the shower.

"We're going to La Rosa Negra tonight, right?" Susie asked. Katey sighed and bent over to towel off her hair.

"Can you just give me some time, Suze?"

"But if I don't bug you about it, you'll never do it." Susie said realistically.

"I just don't want to right now. Okay?" she flipped her head back up and stared at her sister, twisting the towel in her hands.

"No, you just don't want to see him. You know he'll be there, and that's why you don't want to go."

Hadn't they done this before? Susie's words were astoundingly similar to the fight they had had in New York, when she decided on the cat idea. Katey stood there, wearing the hotel's white cotton bathrobe and staring at her sister's obstinate, naïve face, and let it all come out.

"You don't get it Suze. I don't _want_ to see him! I _can't_ see him! You don't know how much it hurt when I said good-bye. How awful I felt when I had to close a letter how much I wanted to _die_ when he told me not to write anymore! You _just don't get it_!" she stopped yelling.

She threw the towel on the floor in anger when she felt tears stinging her eyes. She hated that he was making her cry again. She crossed her arms over her chest and turned to face the wall, sitting on the edge of the bureau, her head half turned away from her sister.

"I don't want to find him again and then have to lose him. Because I will, Susie, I know I will. Our lives are too different. _We_'re too different." she sat on the bed in front of Susie. Susie picked up her damp hair and started to comb it, just like their mother would do for them when they were little girls.

"And you don't know how many nights I heard you cry yourself to sleep, Katey. Please just see him. You don't have to tell him that you love him, or even kiss him. Not if you don't want to. If you think you still need it….just get closure. Does that make sense? Let's just go."

Katey protested all the way to the club. Susie was wearing a tight red dress and had convinced Katey to wear hers. They looked like twins.

Katey's eyes almost welled up with tears when she walked in. It looked exactly the same. Katey tried to leave, but Susie grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the bar.

"_The real dancers are at La Rosa Negra, on Saturday night."_ Javier's voice rang loud in Katey's head. She quickly downed the mojito Susie ordered for her.

"I'm going to go look for him." Susie yelled above the music. Katey nodded and sat at an empty barstool. The loud Cuban music, which she had come to love so much, pounded in her ears as she ached to dance. But she couldn't dance alone, and there was no one she wanted to dance with besides Javier.

_He's probably not even here._ Katey thought. _So many have been lost in the revolution, and in five years he could be anywhere._

But he wasn't lost. A young Cuban boy stood outside that very club, talking and laughing with his friends.

"Did you get an answer from that American chick you write to?" His friend Raul asked. Javier shook his head, wishing he hadn't told his friends he had written to Katey.

"Man, I'll tell you, she was _fine_." said another.

"She was beautiful." Javier said softly, but the others didn't hear him.

"'C'mon, Suarez, let's go inside." Raul pushed him through the door. They quickly pushed themselves to the back of the club and stared dancing. Javier danced with Raquel, a girl he knew from when he had gone to school. He quickly began to play his old game, that every girl he danced with was Katey and that Katey was in the club, trying to find him. It was a tired game, worn and fought over, but never won. They never were Katey, and Katey never found him. Eventually Raquel moved away and he danced with someone else, a girl he didn't recognize.

The lights of the club flickered suddenly, and the music skipped. Just as suddenly, there she was. His angel was there, sitting at the bar getting hammered, unaware of his presence. He moved towards her in a dream like state. She was there, he couldn't believe it. After all these years, all of his hoping, she had come.

He was only a few feet away, almost in arms reach when a man approached her. He kissed her. She hadn't waited.

Katey was on her third mojito when someone heavy bumped into her from behind.

"Hey, watch it buddy--" she said. The man turned towards her.

"Oh, God," he said. "Katey, is it really you?" Katey looked at him incredulously.

"Dave? What're you doing here?"

"I'm writing a freelance piece for the New Yorker. You?"

"I'm here for the Times. Oh, my god, I can't believe it's you. C'mere." she wrapped him in a hug. But he kissed her roughly, and she could taste alcohol on his lips. The kiss lasted too long for Katey, who hadn't any love for Dave anymore.

"Katey, I have to go, but come to the opera with me on tomorrow?"

"Why the opera?"

"I have tickets. I'll see you at three." and he slipped away, typical Dave style.

Katey then left money for bartender and stumbled outside. The pounding music was giving her a headache, and she never had really been much of a drinker. She leaned against the rot iron railing outside and looked at the sky. It was hot and clear. The stars were beautiful.

Katey woke up the next morning with a wicked hangover. She rolled out of bed at two. Susie was sitting at the vanity applying make-up.

"What happened?" Katey asked.

"You passed out in the car. Dave's staying here too and he carried you to the room. He said he'd meet you in the lobby at three if you're feeling up to the opera."

"Do you want to come, for moral support?"

"Have I ever been up to the opera?"

"I guess that's a no," Katey looked at the clock on the bedside table. "Oh, no!" she ran into the bathroom and quickly turned on the shower.

When she was ready, Susie walked her down to the lobby.

"I saw him last night." Katey said.

"I know you did. When else would he have invited you to the opera?"

"No, I mean Javier. He was at the club. I saw him. Out of the corner of my eye." Susie looked at her with an unreadable expression.

"Oh, Katey, you didn't see him. He wasn't there. I looked.

"He was. He was! I saw him there!" Katey insisted.

"Saw who?" Dave asked, appearing behind them.

"Uh, God." Katey said quickly, taking inspiration from the large crucifix hanging over the door.

"God?" Dave asked, smiling but confused.

"Yes, God. Katey has discovered the Lord." Suzie interjected matter-of-factly.

"So, what are we going to see?" Katey asked.

"The Phantom of the Opera," he said with a flourish before he turned to Susie. "Am I right to expect that this beautiful lady is the Susie I've heard so much about?" Susie smiled and nodded. "Well! When Katey described you I figured that you were just her kid sister, but you are a woman!" he twirled her around. "Are you coming to the opera with us? I'd love for you to join us." Susie raised her eyebrows at Katey. Katey nodded.

"I would love to." Susie said, impressed by his politeness.

When they were seated in the opera house, Susie turned to Katey.

"When you get tired of him, can I have him?"

"Right now. He's all yours." Katey whispered back.

"He's so cute, why'd you dump him?"

"He's not my type."

"You mean he's not Javier." Susie said knowingly. The lights dimmed and the show started.

High above them, on the catwalk of the beautiful old building, sat Javier Suarez. He had taken a job at the opera house soon after Katey left Cuba, first just checking tickets, but now he was in charge of lights. He loved his job. He loved the beautiful music, but he also loved the high pay. After the revolution, Carlos had fallen in with Castro's secret police, and disappeared from the Suarez family, leaving his son behind. Javier's grandfather fell ill and died around Javier's twentieth birthday, about three months after Katey left. And Javier was still in charge of his family. He walked his nephew Rafael and sister Chabe to school every morning. He went to work, and he was home in time to help his mother with dinner. That was his day.

He was happy, mostly. He saw his friends most nights, at La Rosa Negra, and he danced with girls he knew, but he never spent the night them, despite his friends' protests. He hadn't spent the night with any before or since he met Katey, who was, he knew, the only girl he would ever love.

She was his opposite in every way, from their coloring to their personalities to their upbringings and lifestyles. But as they got to know each other, they noticed the stark similarities between themselves. They were both repressed in their own ways, their souls longing to be set free.

And now she was back. He had seen her come into the opera house. She wasn't alone, either. She was with the tall blonde man he'd seen her with the night before. Susie was there as well. Katey was, if possible, more beautiful then ever. She was thinner, perhaps, and looked a little hung over, but still the same mostly. He hadn't gotten close enough to see if her eyes were still that beautiful clear blue.

Halfway through the opera Susie decided that all of the singing (which to her sounded like Indian war whoops.) was giving her an aneurysm, so she excused herself. She sat in the red-carpeted lobby for a while, and then she sat on the bottom steps of a staircase labeled **CATWALK**. She was jolted out of thoughts of Dave's bright green eyes when someone tripped headlong over her. She yelped and so did the poor person who tripped. She jumped up and bent down to the man splayed out in front of her.

"Javier?" she asked, shocked.

"Susie? Is that you?" he let her pull him into a sitting position and sat on the floor cross-legged in front of her, squinting at her face. "You look….old."

"You look the same. You're still dancing?"

"Of course," he looked away, at the closed door to the theater. "How's Katey?"

"She's fine." he nodded, his mind lost in a past that he couldn't let go, even though he knew it had passed him by. At that moment, Susie saw it. She saw what Katey had been talking about. It's so hard to say good-bye to someone, to know that they've moved on without you, that they're okay without you, because maybe you're not. To worry about them even if you really don't love them anymore. To find out that you still love them when you truly believe that you can't.

Susie and Javier talked until his boss called him back to work after his break. He stumbled back up the rickety metal stairs, lost in thoughts. Could she _really_ be here? Really? She wasn't just some beautiful illusion that his mind had made up one night when he was drunk on liquor and mind games that he played with himself. But she was here. It was real. As real as the sore knee he got from falling over her sister.

When the show was over he quickly punched out and ran down the stairs, hoping to catch Katey as she left the theatre. He was at the bottom step when he saw Susie, the blond man he recognized and _Katey._ Susie saw him and waved before he could turn around and slip away, unnoticed.

"Javier!" Susie waved excitedly. The blonde man and Katey turned and looked at him. Well, the blonde man did. Katey just looked….through him. As if she didn't see him.

Katey had mixed feelings all through the show. She thought about Dave and what he wanted. Was he just being friendly, as someone who had moved on, or was he looking for something more?

Did she want him to be? That was what she was wondering. Did she love him? No. He was a wonderful man and was sweet and kind and gentlemanly, but he just wasn't….Javier. And what was she going to do about him? She loved him. Didn't she? She did. She did. Did. Did. Did. She loved him, but she didn't think that she could go through it again. She just couldn't lose him again. And she wouldn't. That much she knew. And if she had a reason not to love him, she had a reason not to lose him. And Dave was that reason. If she was with Dave, Susie couldn't make her admit her true feelings. To Javier or to herself.

So when Susie suddenly called out his name, Katey wasn't sure if she was really seeing him. After all these years, was it really him.

He was more shocked then elated when her eyes locked onto his. Katey. Katey. Katey. Was here. His queen. And she _saw_ him. It wasn't just him watching her in a smoky club, of from the catwalk while he directed the lights. She was beautiful in a long, hot pink dress that set off her figure spectacularly. He felt so shabby, wearing his work uniform, a white button-down shirt and black slacks. She had a hibiscus flower behind her ear and her hair was longer.

Katey wasn't aware of anything. She was in a euphoric state, filled only by Javier's presence. How she wanted to touch his face, taste his lips, stare into his dark eyes. He was all there was, there was no buzz of the other theatre goers, there was no Susie and definitely no Dave.

But it had to end, and it did. They had been standing there so long, just looking at each other, that Susie touched Katey's shoulder, almost to see if she was still breathing, because her face had gone pale and her dark eyes were welling up with tears. But she was and then Susie touched Dave's arm and he excused himself to go to the bathroom and Susie followed. (Into the ladies, of course. Don't get your hopes up about them just yet, you dirty mind. Susie is a lady, for now.)

"You look good." Javier said, his eyes catching hers.

"So…so do you."

"You look…older maybe," he paused; when he was with Katey, the thing he wanted to do the least was talk, but it had been years. "You went to Radcliff? You found what you wanted so badly to do?" she nodded.

"I work for the New York Times. My boss sent me here. I'm doing a story."

Oh. So she _hadn't _come to see him. Maybe she hadn't even gotten his letter. Or maybe she just didn't care. _There were right. _He thought. _They were all right. St. Lois was just too far from Havana. And we were too different._

"Who's the body guard?" Javier nodded to Dave and Susie, who were standing outside of the bathrooms yards away, pretending not to be watching them. _Please don't say her boyfriend. Please don't say her boyfriend._

"My boyfriend. Dave Kellerman." Something inside of Javier fell. It wasn't something he could hear or see or touch, but he felt it all right, the incomparable feeling of knowing that you've lost the one person you truly love.

"How long have you been dating?"

"On and off for…two years." she looked at him uneasily, something unreadable in her eyes.

"I…I should be going…my wife is making dinner and I shouldn't be late."

_I waited too long. _Katey thought._ I could have changed this. I could have been selfish. I could have told him about the baby, and now he would be all mine. But now he is making some other woman happy, and he must love her more than he ever loved me, if he even did._

"I'm sorry…..I have to go." and she turned and ran from the room.

She stopped running after three blocks, when the heel of her shoe broke and she tumbled to the ground. She felt needles in her hands as she scraped them against the hard concrete. She unbuckled her shoes and put them in her purse. He was making her cry again. She walked barefoot for what seemed like forever, until she heard a familiar sound.

She sat on the sand of the beach and listened to the crashing of the waves. She lay on her back and looked at the stars, thinking of when she had first come there, with Javier. He had told her that dancing was about being exactly who you wanted to be in that moment.

Who did she want to be? She wasn't happy and she knew it. The life she had wasn't the one she had wanted. If she hadn't met him maybe she would be happy. Maybe she'd be married now, with kids. Would she be fulfilled? Maybe. Maybe she would be if she never knew what she was missing. If she had paid attention to her mother, if she hadn't met Javier, if she had stayed on the course she thought was right. If….there were a thousand ifs, but no becauses.

Katey fell asleep for a few minutes, and when she woke up, her hair gritted with sand and her eyes swollen from tears. She stood up shakily, not trusting anything for the moment, least of all her legs. She faced the ocean and stretched her arms above her like a cat. She turned around and remembered why Javier had chosen _this_ beach to teach her to dance on, why _this_ one was so important to him.

The graveyard his father's tombstone was in was there. She ran her hand over the smooth stone of the head stone, grateful for the quiet of the graveyard; the crashing of the waves and the sound of people and cars so far away. She sat against the back of the headstone, thinking about what she would say to Mr. Suarez if she knew him. _Javier told me once that you were the one in the family who knew what to do. Well, I wish you could get me out of this one, Mr. Suarez. I've screwed up. And now I can't even look at Javier. Who you did a great job with, by the way. He's the most…himself person I've ever met. He doesn't always have the answers, but he makes you think that he does, and then you feel as though everything will be okay. I hope his wife appreciates him. His _wife_. How can Javier have a wife?_ she leaned her head back against the cool stone, wondering if she was crazy, talking to a dead man that she'd never met.


	8. Down Side Up

Chapter 8, Down Side Up

Javier stood there and watched her go. He never said I love you. Never told her that he needed her help. Never told her that she was right about Cuba; had been for years. Susie and Katey's boyfriend went after her, but he knew that she wouldn't be found until she wanted to be. He walked home slowly, and passed the graveyard where his father's tombstone was.

When he was seventeen his father was taken away by Batista's police. They had been eating dinner one night, and they had just come.

_Flashback._

The tiny apartment was full of noise and food. Javier was in his and Carlos's room, listening to music on his newly purchased victrola, which he had bought with money from his new job as a waiter. He was trying to dance, trying to think of moves to impress his new girlfriend Danielle with. Papa was in the living room, reading and calling for Javier to turn the damn music down, it was so loud that the people upstairs were banging on their floor to get him to turn it down.

Mama was in the kitchen with Chabe, and was trying to make dinner while corralling a two-year old. And Carlos was…wherever he went at night. After he turned twenty-one he never seemed to never come home anymore. He was always out with his friends and _no_, Javier couldn't come, he was too young and they didn't want him. Besides, they would just be talking about politics anyway, why did he want to come? He was always floating around humming and thinking about girls and his stupid dancing which he wasn't even very good at anyway.

When the boys were younger they were friends, only four years apart, the inseparable Suarez brothers. Always playing tricks on neighbors and putting pen ink in their older sister Maria's tea so that her teeth would turn blue and her dates wouldn't want to kiss her. But now Carlos had other things on his mind. And he didn't want to have to explain everything to his naïve younger brother.

When Javier, Mama, Papa and Chabe sat down for dinner, nobody talked about Carlos's absence, even though he had promised to be home that night for dinner. Mama had even made his favorite desert as an incentive, but apparently he was too busy.

"The chicken is good Mara." Papa said. Mama smiled; she always loved having her cooking complimented.

When they heard booming knocks on the door, Javier got up to answer it, sure that it was just Carlos, because he had forgotten his key again. (They always kept the doors to the apartment locked now, things were getting dangerous, what with Batista's spies everywhere.)

"Carlos stop interrupting dinner," Javier called though the door as he twisted the handle. "You were supposed to be home for dinner…" but it wasn't his brother. Two policeman pushed the door open, knocking the scrawny boy into his father's bookshelf. He cracked his head against the stone of the hard floor, and then everything went black.

By the time he woke up, his mother was sobbing in a chair by the stove; Carlos was home and was storming around screaming and Chabe was flitting around her mother's chair on the verge of tears, unsure of what was happening.

Everything was explained to Javier when he poked his brother on the shoulder and he started screaming at him, why did he let them in, why?

All he could say was that he was sorry over and over again, and that he thought it was him and that he didn't know.

Javier, now more than the scrawny boy who loved dancing was walking along the rows of tombstones. Right after the funeral he would come here a lot, to think or try to tell Papa that he was sorry he had let the men in that night, that he blamed himself for his father's death. That he knew if he had only asked who it was and told the men no, no Suarez here, two houses down, maybe everything would have been fine.

But then Rafael appeared and Carlos was gone, hiding somewhere and Mama was working and he had to look after his toddler sister and infant nephew.

_But now what am I? It's been seven years but I'm still scrawny…I dance too much and I'm always thinking about girls…(a girl. Just Katey.) but I still am the man of the family, and everything I've believed in has gone wrong. Everything._

He sat down in front of his father's tombstone and folded his hands in his lap.

(This is in Spanish, but I wrote it in English for readers.)

"Hi, Dad. Sorry I haven't been here in a while. I've been busy, but that's no excuse. Remember the girl I told you about? Katey? The beautiful American that I fell in love with? She's back. And I don't know what to do. You would know what to do, wouldn't you? You always knew what to do. I wish you could tell me what to do, because I just don't know. I think I--"

he was cut off by a noise on the other side of the graveyard and he jumped a foot. People weren't allowed to go to the graveyard at night and usually didn't, that was why he liked it. He moved his head to try to see what the noise was. He stood up when he heard what sounded like the rustling of a woman's dress. Whomever it was was cursing to themselves, and they sounded familiar.

"Katey?"

"Yes?"

Just then a bright light shone on both their faces.

"Freeze! Both of you!" A policemen yelled. Javier had forgotten about the police.


	9. Havana Life

Chapter 9, Havana Life

Katey was interrogated by the police for an hour before being put in the tiny jail's one cell. She was curled up on the bench of the cell, pondering her predicament when a policemen opened the door. She jumped up, sure she was going to be let out until he shoved another man into the dim cell and slammed the door.

"We saw him going into the graveyard and followed him. We had no idea that you were there until he pointed you out. Say hello to your new best friend," he sneered. The man sat onto the bench next to Katey and looked at her.

"Hello." Javier said.

"We'll just keep you here until we figure out how much to fine you. Since you're a--" he muttered an awful insult at her. He sneered at her and walked over to a cluster of policemen. They started talking and laughing, and would occasionally look over at Katey.

"Fancy meeting you here." Javier said to her. She just looked at him. Her dress was ripped, her shoes and purse were missing, and Susie must be worried sick. And now, thanks to Javier, she had men leering at her. Oh, and she had been _arrested._

"Not all Cubans are like that, you know. I'm sorry for what he called you."

"Don't worry about it. It was nothing." Katey just wanted this night to end. And having Javier around was sending her mind into new dimensions.

"Not to me." he looked at her sincerely.

"Then why are you apologizing?" Javier stared at her with a raised eyebrow. Was she deliberately mocking him? Then the policeman that had been talking to them earlier.

"You're free to go. Both of you. But you have to pay the fine within two months or you're in front of a judge. Buenos noches."

Katey and Javier were handed slips of paper and then walked out into the warm night air. Katey put the slip of paper into her purse without looking at it and Javier put his in his pocket.

"Katey I--"Javier began, but he was already out of earshot.

Katey somehow made it back to the hotel and explained everything to Susie before falling into bed.

Javier slipped into his house without waking anyone and sat on his bed, watching the moonlight on the thick stone walls of his bedroom. He opened the slip of paper and looked at the minimum fine. $ 1,000. _How was he supposed to pay that?_ All for walking into a graveyard. But that was Cuba now. Not even much different from before the revolution.

They had had so much faith, but it was all for nothing. Everything they thought would come true was all an illusion, like a bubble that rests on your finger. Then the wind comes and pops it.

The next morning he was at work when his work friend Jose came up to him.

"Some girl's downstairs and says she needs to see you. Says it's important." he said.

Puzzled, he let Jose take over for him and went downstairs. The only person he could think of that would visit him at work was his mother, and he started to dream something awful happened until he remembered that Jose knew his mother and would tell him if it was her.

But it was Yolanda who was waiting for him. Tension mounted in the pit of his stomach. Yolanda, a friend of his from when he worked at the hotel so many years ago, watched Chabe and Rafael for him, when they got out of school to when his mother got home from work hours later. In lue of payment Javier's mother would make her dinner, which she would take home and eat with her husband David, a somewhat crazy Canadian man whom she had met at the hotel. But it wasn't Rafael or Chabe, it was--

"I talked to Katey," Yolanda said when they were sitting in the bright sun on the steps of the theatre. "She came to see me when she first got here and I talked to her this morning. She told me what happened. And she got fined two thousand American dollars." Javier opened and closed his mouth. "She has a problem. She said that normally she would just take the money from her bank account, but she can't do that here because of the new laws on American contact. And she can't get her parents to wire her the money either. So she has to come up with two thousand dollars in three weeks. Because she can't stay any longer, since she has to go back to work."

"So where do I come in?" Javier asked, confused. He watched the cars pass by as he waited for Yolanda's response. He let his mind wander to hoe Katey was. How mad she had looked the night before. He felt so bad, because he knew how much it hurt to be insulted because of you nationality. And distrust of American's had grown since the revolution, mostly in the from of government propaganda.

"That's what I'm not sure of," Yolanda said. " I know how she helped you years ago, and I was wondering if you could do the same for her." she looked at her watch. "I must go. But I'll be seeing you, okay?" she ran off.

"But what do I do? Yolanda!" but she was too quick. On his way back inside for work, he spotted a stack of fliers on a table next to the door. He inspected it carefully. But would it work?

Katey was wiping down tables when Javier came in. she had taken a job at a bar to try to earn money to pay her fine. She knew it wouldn't be enough, but it was her only try.

"Katey, there's someone here for you." Georgiana, her new co-worker said. She looked up to see Javier standing in front of the bar. She looked her him sharply before turning to Georgiana.

"What's he doing here?" she asked? Georgiana shook her head. It was after hours and most people didn't come into the bar during hours, so God only knew how he found her.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked, pulling at her elbow. A shudder went through her as he touched her and she yanked her arm back and hustled him away from the peering eyes of Georgiana.

"Is this your new job?" he asked, looking around. _She could do so much better, and plus, she had a college education, which almost nobody around here does._

"Yup. What do you want, Javier? I have a lot of work to do."

"I'm sorry you got arrested." he said, still not being able to get over her in an apron.

"don't apologize. It's my fault. I should have known, I guess." she started putting chairs up on the tiny round tables.

"Look, I know you're probably not too…." he looked around for the English word. "Jovial to see me right now, but I have an idea on how you can make some money." she stopped and looked at him. He held out the flier to her and she studied it. It was written in hand script, not on a typewriter.







"Dance with you? I would help. I might be able to get the rest of the money." Katey said, rubbing her lip with her index finger. He nodded. She thought about it. He could see the doubt growing in her eyes.

"Katey, what about the hope you had? I trusted you when we won the contest, why can't you trust me?" he asked, set off by her uncharacteristic lack of faith in him.

"The thing is Javier that we _didn't_ win the contest. We _lost_ the contest. And I have a lot of work to do. So please excuse me." and she went back to wiping tables. Javier bit his lip, his mind spinning with who she had become I his absence.

"Okay." he mumbled to himself, and left the flier on the only table in the bar that Katey hadn't yet wiped down, and exited quietly, with a small wave to Georgiana.

The nest morning he was just getting up when he heard a knock on the gate into the apartment. The sun hadn't even graced the streets yet; it was early. He wondered who could be knocking this early. He pulled a shirt on over his bare chest and slid out the front door to see….Katey. He smiled. He walked to the gate and opened the gate. He leaned on the wall.

"Hi." he said.

"Hi." she was embarrassed. She kept fiddling with the skirt of her blue halter dress.

"I don't have any money. So if the contest costs money…."

"No. No money. Just us working. And I have work, so we'd have to do it afterwards or on the weekends."

"Okay. But…"

"No buts. We will win. I promise." he dipped his head to look into her face. Her long sheath of flaxen locks were obscuring her face. He reached out a tanned hand and brushed her hair out of her face. She looked up at him.

"Please Javier. Don't….promise me anything."

"But I--"

"Am just a friend. That's all you can be. I'm going back to America. You're staying here. Cuba is your home. You wanted to stay."

Suddenly defensive, Javier tightened his grip on the iron bars of the gate. He had wanted to stay. He had wondered for so long if he had made the right choice by not going with Katey. He had thought he had, that maybe love for his home country and language and heritage was enough, but then things got bad. And then worse. And then they changed completely. Now that Cubans had hindsight, they were wondering if Castro had been the right choice, but what choice did they have now? Life was pretty much the same.

But then Javier thought of the only thing that he really knew about the revolution. It had been the best night of his life. He had made the mistake of telling his friends about it afterwards, sparing no detail. Now whenever the subject of Katey came up between Javier and his friends, (rarely) Daniel would snigger and say that Javier had finally committed the "physical act of love". Javier would blush and change the subject. It was hard to think about. He wondered if Katey felt the same way about him that he did about her then. And now. Did she still love him as he did her? Did she know that he didn't want to dance with her, that all he wanted to do was look into her eyes and tell her how he really felt?

God, he hoped not. That would only complicate things. And Katey had changed. he still knew he loved her through and through, but she wasn't the same.

After Katey left and he was riding his newly purchased mo-ped to the theatre, all he could think about was the choice he had made. The choice to stay with his life and not go and start a new one in America with Katey. After his father died, he had had to make choices. Mama was swamped with life, and Carlos was always in some bar somewhere, drinking and talking about politics. And then he had a baby to deal with, and Javier dropped out of school. Had he told Katey that? Probably not. He always felt inferior to her about intelligence. She was whip-smart and was bound for an amazing college, and there he was, running an entire house at seventeen; a high-school drop-out.

He watched the scenery go by; brightly colored buildings smiled out at him from the edges of the streets. As the light poured into the cobblestone streets of Havana, Javier inhaled deeply, taking in the smells and sounds that only his country could have. The rich aroma of Cuban food, spicy and exotic; the sounds of bongos and acoustic guitars weaving in and out of the laughs and shouts of people dancing in the streets; children's excited giggles as they planned what to do on the weekend; the smells of the hibiscus on a bush he passed and the roses trailing from a woman's window boxes.

How could he ever leave this? He'd never even been to America. Everything he knew was here. His family, friends, job, dance. It was all here. Except that it wasn't all here. Katey was there. Or at least she has been, until she had returned without warning and throw his life out of wack. He was thinking so hard that he missed the turn onto Rosado St., which was where the theatre was. He doubled back and almost toppled the bike trying to get off, afraid he would be late for work.

"Where you been Suarez? Early show starts in ten." Jose said once Javier ran up the three flights of stairs to the catwalk.

"Yeah--I know." he panted. He leaned his hands on his knees and stared at his shoes until he stopped panting and the burning in his kneecaps subsided. The early show was over at lunchtime, and then he and Jose were free until three o'clock, when they had to get ready for that night. He had Katey had arranged to meet at La Rose Negra for an hour to try to choreograph their dance until she had to get back to work.

She was waiting there for him when he got there, still in her work clothes. She hadn't even taken off her apron, but her hair was swept back in a ponytail. Francisco, the young bartender was sneaking her glances over the bar.

"Where've you _been_?" she asked. He shrugged and blamed it on the traffic. They got to work. Katey had forgotten how good it felt to dance with him. Like being in the ocean, floating just under the surface, where her feet could touch soft sand if she needed reassurance, and it was just her, along in her soft and silent world. Only better, because she wasn't alone, he was there.

And they got to work. And it wasn't hard. They fell right into the place they had been five years before. First they tried to remember their routine from the dance finals. It came back to Katey like the alphabet. But for Javier, it was harder. He hadn't been doing this kind of dancing. She had been practicing, he could tell. It just came to her. But all he had been doing was what he did in La Rosa Negra, nothing fancy or special. And he hadn't been dancing with others that much, not since Katey left, so he was a little out of practice. But she just went with it and never said anything; the old Katey was coming back.


	10. The Old Havana

Chapter 10, The Old Havana

A week later Katey was fired from her job at the bar. She came home that night with a drink spilled down her front and a temper to kill a cat. Susie was out; she had met a very nice old lady who offered to teach her how to cook in exchange for watching her grandchildren while she went out to visit friends. Katey turned the shower on full blast and ordered room service, even though she knew that Susie would be back soon with dinner and she would make Katey eat half.

After her shower, she lay on the couch and waited for Susie to come home. Katey hadn't told her about the dancing. All she said was that she was doing interviews for the paper, or that she was at work. She hadn't told Susie that she had already written her piece for the paper. She would, however, tell her that she was fired. Susie would probably cluck her tongue in an I-told-you-so way and wouldn't say anything more about it.

That night Javier came to her door. She had been sleeping and pulled a blanket around herself when she went to open the door.

"I'm sorry." he said, staring her straight in the face.

"What about?" she asked, confused.

"That I never told you how much I love you. I told you, but I never said--"

"It's okay." she put her hand on his face and kissed him.

Glad that Susie was still out, she pulled him over to her bed, still kissing him. He pulled her hair out of the bun and let it tumble down her smooth, ivory colored shoulders. She tugged off his shirt and he lay down.

His fingers worked the zipper of her dress and zzzzz it slid down. She felt her bare skin against the smooth cotton of the bedcover and remembered the last time they had done this, with the surf crashing nearby and nothing but the thin sheet in the bungalow separating them from the soft, warm sand below.

"Katey I--"

"It's okay….it's okay." she smiled and he suddenly felt better about all the nervousness in his stomach; he wasn't very practiced about this sort of thing.

"But I don't--"

"Shhh. Te amo, Javier."

Katey woke with a start as she heard the door to the apartment slam. It was only a dream, and now Susie was home.

"Kate! You better be hungry, 'cause I brought desert too and I--Katey, what's wrong?" she turned on the light of the living room and saw Katey, with tears streaming down her face.

"What's wrong?" she asked. She sat down next to Katey and hugged her. Katey hugged back, hard. She cried into her shoulder until she felt silly and pulled back. She wiped wet, teary hair away from her face and sat back on the couch, her hands covering her face. She hated to cry in front of others.

"Um, do you want pie? I love pie. I made some. It's pumpkin. You know, 'cause of Halloween and all." said Susie, who wasn't very good at other peoples emotions. Katey wiped her face, which was all scuzzy and gross from crying.

"I got fired. They said I was an awful waitress."

"Yeah, I figured you would be." they smiled.

"And I'm dancing with Javier. We're in this contest. Maybe we can win some money."

"I know."

"You know?"

"Yeah. I saw you too. I put two and two together."

"When'd you see us?"

"Well, that bartender's pretty persuasive. And his accent is to _die_ for. Now I get why you have such a thing for foreign guys," Katey laughed. "You're gonna win, you know. And I'm just glad Mom and Dad will get to watch you win." Katey, who had been fiddling with the fringe of the window trimming, looked up suddenly.

"What?"

"Well, they called while you were at work and said they're canceling the Thanksgiving party and coming here to spend it with us. Like old times."

"This is unbe_lievable_." Katey got up and walked into the kitchen. She found the pie Susie had been talking about and opened it. She got a knife out of the drawer and cut herself a slice.

"Why were you crying?" Susie appeared in the door behind her. "Wow. Put the knife _down_ before you tell me." Katey had turned around with the sharp knife still in her hand. She put the knife down on the granite countertop.

"Bad dream."

"About Javier?" she nodded.

She and Susie were eating pie at the dining room table when the doorbell rang.

"Go away Heckles!" Susie yelled.

"Susie!" Katey laughed and answered the door. It was Dave.

"Hello. I was wondering if I might accompany you fine young ladies to a late dinner." he bowed, smiling. Katey smiled.

"Uh, actually we were already eating, but we'd love for you to join us." Katey knew Susie would be pleased. He leaned close and whispered in her ear.

"I was hoping you'd say that. I forgot to make reservations somewhere." That was just like Dave. Katey smiled and let him in.

Susie was getting to like Dave more and more. And he liked her, she thought. And Katey didn't want him anymore, so….

"Hey Dave, we were thinking of going to La Rosa Negra tonight. Wanna come? I'm sure Katey can show us how to dance like real Cubans." he smiled and accepted. He waited patiently for them to get ready, and when Susie came out, he whistled. He spun her around and she laughed. Katey was glad that they liked each other so much, but Susie might be just a little too young for him. She was twenty, he was twenty-five. She was still in college, for heaven's sakes. When Katey came out wearing a red dress similar to the one she was wearing her first night at La Rosa Negra, Dave gave a long, low whistle. _Makes up your mind, boy._ She thought. _It's either her or me. And I hope to God's graces that it's her._

In the car to the club, they were laughing and talking. They had all had a few drinks at the bar at the hotel, so the world was a little fuzzy to all three of them.

"Hey, you know what would be funny to do tonight? Pretend that the two of you got married. That would the biggest joke _ever._" Susie said.

"Yeah. Hey, driver!" Dave yelled. "Madison's Jewelers, please."

Twenty minutes later the three of them walked out of a jewelry store with shiny silver bands on their left ring fingers, courtesy of Dave. He hadn't wanted Susie to feel left out, so he bought her one, too. They were laughing and talking loudly when they stepped out onto the street a few blokes away from the club. Katey was looking down when a man on a moped clipped her. She let out a little squeak and the others looked at her.

"I broke a nail."

Javier was dancing with his friend Lola when his sister walked in.

"Can I get in a dance with my champion dancer little brother?" she smiled. He twirled her around the way a brother would. Smiling, but polite. When he asked her why she was out, she merely shrugged and kept smiling. Maria was never the type to give explanations. She married her husband Francisco when Javier was fifteen and she twenty-five. She had always been a little too old to really be his pal, but she was his sister in a way. When they were sitting at the bar eating pretzels she started to gab away about her little boy, Diego.

"And yesterday he came home with his report card and I was _so proud_. All A's! I think he's very much like his uncle Javier," she smiled at him and squeezed his hand. "Speaking of which, when are you going back to school?" Javier groaned. Whenever she visited she got onto this subject, and that made his mother get going.

"Javi, you have to stop this. You always said 'Ill go back when things settle down,' and then you said that it wasn't right because of the revolution, now you say it's because of Carlos leaving, but things are _settled_ now. I don't mind watching Chabe and Rafael until you get home, they're no bother to me."

"I just don't want to, that's all. I can't. I have a job, one that pays well. I can't quit my job to go back to school. I worked hard to get here. You just don't under_stand_, Ria."

"What's not to understand, huh? So you work less, is that so bad? You were so _good_ in school Javi. Much better than me. Top of your class! You know how Papa used to brag about you, huh? It was all 'oh, my son's going to make something of himself someday. He's going to get out of Cuba and go to school in America and be the finest dancer the world has ever seen.'" she mimicked their father's deep, gruff voice. They both grew silent at his mention. Maria touched his hand.

"What about that American girl, huh? You said that you were going to go to America because you loved her so much. And then you didn't go. How did you regret that? You said that being with her made you want to be better. So be better, Javi. Be better." she looked at him with light green eyes, so much like their father, and he gave her a small smile. She was right. He had said that about Katey, and he did want to go back to school, at least to graduate high school.

"Why are you really here, Maria?" he asked. She sighed. She thought maybe he'd agree this time, but she knew her little brother had a stubborn streak a mile wide.

"Oh, I just wanted to catch up with you," she smiled wickedly. "Your pretty little blonde girl was by the house earlier. She waved to me, but I'm not sure she knew who I was. She is very beautiful." Maria smiled and trailed her finger around the rim of her glass, her mind somewhere else, as it usually was. Javier narrowed his eyes. He was confused by Katey's secret visit, but he also knew that something was wrong with Maria.

"It's Francisco, isn't it? What's wrong? Is he drinking, did he hurt you?" his protective side was always there, even for a sister that he knew could take care of herself. Maria sighed, caught again. She muttered something unintelligible under the music.

"What?"

"He's missing," she said. "He has been for a few days, and I'm worried. He's always been against Castro, and he never really kept his opinions private. And you know how things are now, I was worried maybe he went the same way as Papa. And I was wondering if you could maybe put the word out to look for him. I left Diego with Mama to come here. And now I need to go. So you tell me about that little American, huh? She was cute. And she really had you."

Javier, who was trying to process the news of his missing brother in law, asked what she meant.

"Oh, you know. You'd had girlfriends before, but this is the first one you really loved." she smiled and slipped into the crowd after giving him a kiss of the cheek. He called after her, but if she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. That was Maria. He sighed and downed his drink.

Katey and Susie followed Dave into the club. He excused himself for the bathroom, leaving the girls alone next to the bar.

"I need to get a drink." Katey said, signaling the bartender.

"You need to get some Javier." Susie said, pointing to Javier, who was waving from a few feet away. "Go." she pushed Katey to him.

"Hi." she said. She was thinking about her dream in the worst way. Dave then appeared behind her.

"Hello," he held out his hand to Javier, who shook it gamely. It was plain to Katey that he didn't like him, though she couldn't figure out why.

"Do you mind if I dance with your date?" Javier asked.

"Well, you'll have to ask her." Dave wasn't used to sharing Katey with anybody, and he was still working out his feelings for her. Javier turned to Katey, who nodded.

"Should we give your boyfriend a show?" he asked, pulling her onto the dance floor.

"He's not my boyfriend." Katey objected. He smiled. Suddenly, the floor cleared for them. They looked around, confused, until they saw Susie watching with Dave.

"Hey, the king and queen have returned!" she yelled.

"Susie!" Katey yelled.

They danced that night like it was their very last night together. Which years before, it had been. Years later, Javier would ask Katey why she danced with him that night the way she hadn't when they had been practicing. She never could answer him perfectly. There wasn't even a real reason, she said. Everything came back to her. Maybe it was the music or the smoke or the drinks or the band on her finger. Or maybe it was his breath on her skin. Or the way it felt to have his large, brown hand on her small pale one.

She was different, he could tell. She wasn't as sulky or moody or, he thought, completely bitchy. Which she had been since they had seen each other. They were friends again, if nothing more.

Her hair fell out of the bobby pins and his smile, his old, boyish grin returned to his face. Maria, who was watching unnoticed from beside the stage, smirked and saw how stupid her little brother was. How could he not see how crazy about him this girl was?

The next day after practicing, they were sitting on the beach near the graveyard and Katey leaned back against the rocks. She gathered her hair under her skull as a pillow.

"I still think we should do the double turn."

"No, that's overdoing it. And I don't think I should throw you over my head, either. Too swing dance." he made a cut-it-out motion with his hands.

They got to talking, and soon they were talking about neighbors.

"The woman next to me always steals her husband's _Playboy's_ and draws on them with markers." Katey smiled.

"Nah, mine's better. Mrs. Gerlani, the old lady two houses down watches Chabe and Rafael for me sometimes. She went traveling once. Maybe it was France? Anyway, she brought back Crocodile Pâté. I saw it once in her cupboard. The expiration date said 1927." They both laughed.

"Okay. No no no. Mine is the best. The man below me always says I'm making too much noise. Anyway, he always knocks on my ceiling with a broom. And sometimes he comes to my door and tells me I'm disturbing his ferrets or rabbits or dinner party or movement classes."

"Movement classes?"

"That's his way of saying he's not a part-time mime."

"Mime? I don't know the English word." Javier propped himself up on his elbows and raised an eyebrow at Katey. She made hand and face movements. He laughed.

"How's is Susie? She cooks now, yes?"

"Yep. My parents hate it. They don't like that I work, and they don't want her to work either. But she loves it. She was never the best at school. Asked too many questions. She was always the one that thought two plus two _might_ equal four, but it could also equal four and one tenths or five or yellow."

Javier laughed.

"And you, Miss Miller. How are _you_?" Katey shrugged. "No, really."

"I'm good. Happy. I like Dave. I love my job."

"Yes. You write the truth, yes?" he looked at her and she nodded. "You are very lucky that you can do this. It's not always so here anymore. Not everyone is happy. But you? You don't seem happy. You seem broken."

She sat up.

"Broken" What do you mean, _broken_?" he looked at her, knowing that it might not have been the best English phrase.

"No, not like that. A missing piece. Not very whole."

"I am whole, Javier," he looked at her and shook his head. She hated that he always knew her so well.

"Fine. I'll _show _you."

Twenty minutes later they were walking up to the Oceana. That was the

most important thing she had learned at Radcliff. If you can tell someone, show them.

The two girls had now set up for the long haul. Katey's boss had phoned earlier that week and said that he liked her article so much that he wanted more, and she was to stay until he asked her back, and to think of it as a vacation. Susie had brought pictures galore, as she got easily homesick.

Javier looked around the hotel as though one might view a former school or home if they had not seen it in years. He remembered his days as a waiter too well, and it was strange to be back.

"Here." Katey opened the door to her and Susie's apartment and Javier followed her in.

"Very nice." he said. He stood in the vestibule and fingered the huge vase of flowers while Katey opened a huge scrapbook that Susie had been working on. They sat on the couch and she opened it between them.

"This was my eighteenth birthday."

"When?"

"Ah, October before I met you. And this is our old lake house. Me and Susie when we lived in Philadelphia. See the big building? That's the library at U Penn. My dad went there. He loved to show us around," she smiled and flipped through page after page, pointing out significant or amusing things. "Oh, this is when Susie cut her pinkie off. Don't worry, they sewed it on just fine. Cooking accident. Part of why Mom and dad don't like her chosen profession. She'll always have a scar there. And this--" she was stopped by Javier's hand pushing a page back to look at a picture she had passed.

"What……?" Javier looked at her in disbelief. How could she have not noticed the picture of her and Susie at their parents beach house in the spring.

"What? When…? When did you have a baby?" he jumped off the couch, spilling the scrapbook onto the floor and sending a shiver up Katey's spine. She braced herself.

"Why didn't you tell me that you're married? That you have a _child_?" he was yelling now.

"Because I wasn't and I don't." Katey flopped back against the sofa. He looked at her. He saw it in her eyes and he felt a burning spring to his.

"Mine?" he bent down to pick up the book. He looked at the picture and traced a finger along the line of her stomach. He sat on the floor, looking at it and Katey watched him. She saw a tear spring from his eye, fall, and spread out over the plastic protecting the photograph.

"You never told me. I would have come," his voice wobbled as if it were changing.

"I know. I couldn't let you do that."

"What? Why not?" Katey slid onto the floor. She had been dreading this.

"Because. You didn't want me to give up my dreams. Why should I let you give up yours because of me? It isn't fair."

"It isn't fair." _It isn't._ Javier thought. _She's right. I wouldn't let her give up her dreams. But isn't this different? She kept this from me for years. She probably would never have told me. But…still. How could I have left my life?_

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and stood up.

"Come on." he said. She looked at him, confused. Shouldn't he still be yelling?

"What?" he held out his hand and picked hers up. He tugged her into the vestibule. "Come, come."

"Where are we going?"

"To practice. We need to get this thing down in two weeks."

And they tried, and they tried, but it still wasn't working.

As he was spinning her around the club, Katey just couldn't understand him. Why was he so suddenly fine? Hadn't she done some huge awful thing?

"You're off."

"Am not."

"You are too."

"You are."

"Am not."

"Stop being obstinate."

"I am not abstinate."

"Well, of course." she laughed.

"What's funny? I said nothing funny. All I said was that you're off." he frowned at her and adjusted his frame. She sighed. This was going nowhere fast. And they'd been at it for three hours already. She had to get home. Susie would have a royal fit is she wasn't home for dinner. Also the musicians for that night were starting to tune and one of them kept whistling at her. It was distracting. She suddenly stopped.

"I gotta get home for dinner." she said. She sat on a chair and pulled off her shoes. She had long since learned what shoes _not_ to dance in. she pulled on her high, strappy ones and pulled a cardigan over her dress.

"'Night. When tomorrow? How about two? Because I have to do _another_ article."

"Sure. I can walk you back to your hotel." he pulled a shirt on over his thin white tank top.

"No, I know the way."

She stepped through the beaded door out onto the street. He followed and caught her elbow as she turned around.

"I know you do. But it's dangerous. My brother-in-law is missing."

"Oh."

She let him walk her back, maybe out of pity. She wasn't really the type to let a guy do something like that for her anymore. It seemed to impinge on her newfound independence.

"So what did you do when you found out?" Javier asked her. They were walking back from the club on the beach when he suddenly spit it out.

"About what? The baby?" he nodded. "Well, I wanted to tell you…but by then you had already asked me not to write. So I didn't. After I lost it, I wrote and told you everything. And when I didn't get an answer back, I figured that you just didn't care."

"Was that what you thought or what they told you to think?" she raised a puzzled eyebrow.

"You had faith in me, Katey. I know you did, even if you tried to seem as though you didn't care when I stayed. You would have known I never knew about the baby. You would have trusted me. Someone told you not to keep trusting. You trusted."

She was quiet. They listened to the waves and felt the sand squish between their toes.

"You know, I'd never felt sand like this before I came here." he looked at her, a question in his eyes. "It's different from the sand at our beach house. That's the only beach I'd been to before I came here. I remember how much I loved it. It's so soft. Buttery."

They came to the arch with the hotel's name lit up. He hesitated before following her through it. When they got to her apartment, they could hear Susie banging pots and pans around in the kitchen even from behind the closed door. She whipped open the door when they knocked.

"Where have you _been_? Oh, hi Javier. Enter." she pulled both of them in and set another place at the table. The three of them were silent at dinner except to compliment Susie's food. Susie was always the talkative one, but she was being silent. Something about their silence and the way he would glance at her when she wasn't looking made her think that Katey had told him about the baby, but she couldn't be sure. So she kept her mouth shut. When dinner was through, Katey went to work on her article for a few minutes and Javier and Suzie washed dishes in the kitchen. Living in the hotel, they didn't really have to clean anything, but Susie was just used to it.

"So, are you sure you should really be here?" Susie asked.

"Why not? Should I leave?" he looked at her.

"No. Just…with your wife and all. Won't she want you home?"

"Oh, yes, my wife. No, she's at her mother's tonight. She has…a mental instability…so she needs to be away from me sometimes…" he lied._ Why_ had he just said that his wife was crazy? Why couldn't he have just said that his wife wasn't home? He was the worst liar.

"Ah. I see. So, what's her name?" Susie asked.

"Ah, Lara."

"I _see_."

"What do you mean?"

"What do _you_ mean?"

"You said that funny."

"Nothing it's just….this wife. She's fictitious, no?"

"What? You know, maybe I should go. Tell Katey I'll meet her tomorrow same time same place."

As he left, Susie giggled, then burst out into full-out laughter. For all of her sister's accomplishments, she sure was _dumb._ How could she not see how crazy about her he was? They weren't getting along? Jeez. If they were in grade school he'd be pulling her pigtails and she'd be stealing his snack packs. _They're _both_dumb._ Susie chuckled to herself.

The falling right back into place part might have been a mistake of words. They were fighting and bickering and they couldn't get along on anything. But they were getting along. Even Susie could see it.

Javier ate dinner with them most nights after work. He explained to Katey the lie about having a wife, and she just laughed. She had known when he was lying.


	11. The Dance Contest

Chapter 11, The Dance Contest.

When the night of the final came upon them, Susie and Katey took a cab to the small theatre where it was held. Javier met them there. Susie took a seat behind the few judges in the empty theatre and watched, smiling at Katey. Who was so nervous that she barley said anything to Javier. If they didn't win, she might not be able to go home. And how could she stay? She had a job, an apartment….a life.

"Just calm down. We'll win." Javier said to her as they walked out onto the stage. They danced their best. They tried so hard. And at they end, they knew they had won. Susie, who was peaking over the shoulder of one judge at their scorecard, had apparently scored them well. Susie was making 10 signs. They sat down behind the curtain as the judges made their final decisions.

He and Katey looked up when they heard the curtain swish. Actually, she did. He had been to dazed, since she had her head on his shoulder; the most loving gesture she had made since she'd been back. Strange, considering the way they had left.

It wasn't one of the judges standing there, it was Susie. They both looked up expectantly. But she shook her head.

"Well, you got third prize. Apparently you were the last people tonight. No money, but you got a great little trophy." She held up a small, bronze trophy. She put it in Javier's hand.

Katey was in shock. How could they have lost? What was she going to _do_?

"Javier, she's still asleep. She didn't want to see you yesterday, or the day before. I think you're getting your hopes up." Susie said.

It had been three days, and after they lost Katey went right into her room and shut the door. She wouldn't see Javier, although Susie told him that she said she didn't blame him in the least.

Now he was standing in their apartment, badgering Susie into letting him in.

"I'm worried about Katey. This isn't like Katey." he said. She sighed and let him in and he sat at the table while Susie made lunch.

"You mean it's not like the old Katey.

"Huh?"

"You know what I mean. But you don't really know Katey anymore. She changed after she met you. Not in a bad way," she said when she saw his face. "In a good way. She's was…unhappy. She just wouldn't admit it," Susie smiled. "That's Katey. If something's wrong, she'll never admit it. Did you know that she never told our parents that she was pregnant? They never even knew until she started to show. She just likes to seem perfect. She says she's sick. That's why she won't see you. She claims I gave her food poisoning."

"When was the last time you saw her like this?"

Susie shrugged. "She was in a funk when you told her not to write. The last time she wouldn't get out of bed, though, was when she lost the baby."

"Really? You would think she'd be relieved." Susie looked at him angrily, an he knew that he had said something bad.

"Oh, no. she tried not to show it, but she was so happy that she was pregnant. I mean, not at first. At first, she was terrified. But then, she got used to it, and she was happy. It almost seemed like she had you again. She even picked out names." Susie said, nostalgic.

"Like what?"

She paused, thinking. "Oh, lots. She was really unsure about girls names. I think her top one was Meg. Or Aelis. I can't remember. One of those."

"Aelis?"

"Yep. Celtic thing. She was really into that then. She liked old magical stuff. King Arthur and crap."

"And boys?"

"Oh, that was definite. She always knew, even though I thought it was kind of dumb. She wouldn't have her mind changed, though. It was Alexander. You know why? She'd never tell me." he nodded.

"Alejandro was my father's name. I told her once that if I ever had a son, that's what I would name him. To honor him. She knew I would like that."

Javier, sitting backwards in the chair, looked at the counter. It was cluttered with ingredients for the omelets Susie insisted he'd love. The ledge over the sink was cluttered with pictures of the girls and their family and friends. Javier stood up and stood next to Susie so he could pick one up to inspect more thoroughly.

"Did you bring this?" Javier asked. Susie glanced up from the tomatoes she was slicing.

"No, Katey. It's her favorite. It was on her mantle in her apartment. Huh. I didn't notice she brought it." Susie looked at him and smiled.

Javier rubbed his finger along the plain wooden frame. It was him. December five years ago, Susie had taken a picture of him and Katey with her new, color camera. It was of them on the beach where he had first introduced her to afro-Cuban dance.

That day, they had been having so much fun. After leaving La Rosa Negra, they had bought some bad, cheep beer and drank it on the beach. The way the girls were acting, he had believed that it was both of their first drinks. They had all gotten silly, and soon they were lying on the sand playing truth-or-dare.

"Okay, Susie," Javier said. "Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Okay. Is this your first drink?"

Susie hesitated.

"Well, no. Remember that waiter I met last summer when we went to that resort in Vermont? Kellerman's, or something? Anyway, I mete this _really_ cute waiter…he asked back to the staff quarters one night and he offered me one." Susie shrugged, her eyes on the sky above them. Katey laughed.

"What is it with you and waiters?" she asked.

"Me? What about you?" they both looked at Javier, who looked back, innocent.

"What?"

Katey laughed, and mimicked him.

"Ohhh, look at me. I am Javier. I am just this little Cuban boy and I have _no idea _what these crazy American girls are saying." They all started to laugh. When they came to their senses, Susie reminded Katey it was her turn to ask Javier.

"Okay, truth or dare?" he thought.

"Dare."

"Okay," Katey thought. "I dare you to wear my swimsuit until we go home."

"Ehh….eh--_no_."

"Yes, you chose dare! It's fair!" Susie yelled.

"But--but--what will _you_ wear?" he sputtered. Katey looked around. She hadn't brought another one.

"My towel."

"What?"

"Cover your eyes."

And so when they made sure he wasn't peeking, she stripped full off and wrapped a towel around herself. It was, definitely, the most spontaneous thing her sister had ever done, Susie decided. It was good she was different.

When Javier was instructed to turn around, he pulled on her bikini top. That was as far as he would go, he insisted. He saw Katey and let out a long, low whistle. The two saw each other and started laughing.

"Wait, wait! It needs something." Katey surveyed Javier's newfound sexuality. Then she reached down and scooped up a handful of sand and dropped it into the top of the bikini. Susie did the same for the other side.

"Stop! Let me get this with my camera!" Susie pulled it out of it's case and quickly snapped the picture.

Now, Javier looked at it. The two of them were lying next to each other. The ocean glittered like a thousand sapphires behind them, and the sun dropped low, making a round paper cut-out like circle in the water. The two of them were laughing so hard their eyes were tearing up, and they were both half sitting up. She had her hand on his chest, and his arm circled her waist, his fingers spread wide. His other hand was in her hair, one finger pressed against her temple.

The girls had wondered about this small gesture when they got the pictures developed, but Javier remembered why. He liked to feel her pulse. When they were lying together, or just dancing, sometimes he'd put his hand on her heart or hold her wrist tightly. To make sure that she was really there. That she wasn't an angel or some other divine being; sent to help him be better. She was so perfect, so _unreal_. He was so grateful. He'd marry her then, if she would say yes. Susie's voice jolted him out of his thoughts.

"You really were in love, weren't you? Even then, you both knew. You really did."

"Yes. I really did."

But it wasn't him that said it. It was Katey, standing in the doorway. Javier wondered how long she'd been there. To him, she had never looked so beautiful. No makeup. Her hair was wet and knotty from her shower, and she had her bathrobe pulled tight around herself. And she was staring at Javier, raptly.

"I didn't think you'd come."

"I came."

"I didn't tell you." Susie said.

When they were eating their omelets, Katey suddenly paused and looked around.

"What?" Susie asked.

"You know what we need about now?" She asked. She and Susie made contact. "Ah." Suddenly they both stomped loudly on the floor. They scared the bejesus out of Javier, who jumped a foot and then muttered curses under his breath at them in Spanish. They had made him spill half his water down his shirt front. They laughed. He dipped his fingers in his water glass and flicked water onto Katey, who shrieked and laughed.

When Susie was cleaning up, Javier, who had been helping her, went to the bathroom. When he didn't come back, she peeked through the crack in the door into Katey's room.

The two of them were sitting on Katey's bed. He was slowly combing out her hair. They were quiet and looked happy. _There. _Thought Susie. _As it should be._

Katey was combing her hair when Javier knocked on the door. She had changed into a dress and had been pulling at her hair for what seemed like forever, and she was close to tears. Wordlessly, he saw what she was doing and took the comb from her hand. Gently, he started to work through the knots. She wiped at her eyes and she looked at them in the mirror. They both looked at the same time, and they saw each other looking. They smiled, small smiles. Both thinking of that time when this would have seemed welcome. Normal, and fitting. Like that last piece of the jigsaw that you'd been working on for days. Just there, and you feel good. Accomplished in a small way.

"I'm sorry I made you cry so much." Javier sounded close to tears himself. She looked at him. He stared back into her eyes, all traces of his grin gone from his face.

"You didn't."

"I did," his voice cracked. "When I didn't come with you. When I told you not to write. When you lost the baby. It was all my fault….." he dropped the comb and sat back on the bed. He covered his face with his hands. He felt…ashamed of himself. Then he felt her hand on his face.

"No. It wasn't you. It was never you." he looked at her, such kindness in her eyes, and regretted everything that he had ever told himself about them never being able to work out. She was the one, he knew. She just was.

No questions or doubts or maybe's. No airport good-byes or letters signed with love. Well, maybe one or two. But they would all hold the promise of togetherness that was right around the corner. This was it. He let her get away before, but he wouldn't now.

He reached his hand out and touched a lock of her blonde hair right near her temple. He felt a shudder go through the girl. Why? He touched her all the time when they were dancing.

And then, just as suddenly, she kissed him. He felt his head lay back against the pillows of her bed and could feel her soft weight overtop of him. He put his hand in her hair and she could feel her fingers smoothing out his eyebrow. And then trailing against his cheeks.

Suddenly, there was yelling in the living room. Susie and someone that sounded like….his mother? They both sat up quickly and ran to the door.

Susie was standing in the vestibule with Mrs. Suarez, who was making wild gestures with her hands. Then she saw Javier and started to point a finger at him while coming towards him. He baked away slowly until he bumped into Katey, who held his hand. His mother was yelling at him in Spanish, which she understood nothing of.

"Javier Alejandro Suarez! You don't come home all night, and I worry that you are out pulling a Carlos, maybe getting that nice American girl pregnant! You stay out all night, then when I need you you are nowhere to be found! You're not at the club, not at work, not at Maria's, not with your friends! Then where do I look? I don't know! Finally, when I think you're dead, I get the sense to look here, and now you're kissing some girl! Well, you better come with me right now young man 'cause we got a big problem!" she yelled.

"What? What?" he yelled in English. She sighed. She got going in English.

"Your brother is back. And he's mucho drunk and I think he's hurt, and he's asking for Rafael. He comes at me and Chabe with his rifle thing and we get out quick! I left Rafael with your sister and that's where I leave the baby when I come find you! Now come with me!" she walked up to him and grabbed his ear and pulled him out the door, all the while scolding him in Spanish while he whined for her to let go of his ear. He was a man for God's sakes. She never did this to Maria…

The two girls watched them go, shell-shocked.

"Do you think I should go with them?" Katey asked. Susie nodded.

"They might need you." Katey grabbed her purse and quickly followed them out the door. She met them on the stairs. Mrs. Suarez had released her son's ear and now they were debating what to do about Carlos.

"Can I help?" Katey asked. They both turned around, startled by her voice.

Mrs. Suarez's face softened. She had always liked Katey. from talking to her and hearing about her from her son, she thought that she was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her son. And after all, she had helped Javier win the $ 500 that had helped them back on their feet. She was a nice girl, even besides. Smart. She hoped that maybe she could get Javier to go back to school.

Mrs. Suarez had always had high hopes for her youngest son. If Mr. Suarez were still alive, he could have been anything. He could have gotten out of Cuba; gone to college.

"No. But thank you." Javier said. He didn't want Katey to see just how dysfunctional his family really was. Hers was so normal, it was a big comparison. Mrs. Suarez poked her son, startling him.

"What?" he asked in Spanish.

"She wants to help. She wants to be part of your life, Javi."

"How do you get that from what she said?" he asked. Mrs. Suarez sighed.

"Just do it." she said. Javier sighed.

"Yes," he held his hand out to her. She took it and let him pull her along.

They went to his sister's. Katey had heard Javier talk of his sister adoringly numerous times. Maria, his sister, looked a lot like him. She was beautiful and had long, straight hair that went past her waist and had the same nose as Javier and his mother. She also had the trademark grin that pegged her as a Suarez. She said something to Javier that Katey didn't understand, but she heard her name. Javier blushed and his sister smiled.

Inside her apartment was beautiful. It actually reminded Katey a bit of her own. Maria was obviously an artist; there were beautiful paintings on the walls, and there was a stack of blank canvas behind the door. There was also a cup of assorted sized paintbrushes next to the sink. Flowers and plants grew everywhere, and sitting on shelves up against the window over the sink were numerous cooking plans and herbs. Lemon thyme, hothouse tomatoes, tiny cacti. And the walls were painted the same color as Katey's apartment. Pictures sat on every flat surface, mostly of Maria and the little boy that Katey learned later was her son. Katey picked one up and studied it.

"This is very good." she remarked. Maria looked up from the pot she was stirring.

"Yes, my husband took that. He's a photographer. A bit of a lost art here now, but he'll never take another job. And with what he makes and what I earn from my art, we're provided for." Katey was astounded by Maria's spirit. She probably shouldn't have been, since she was related to Javier, but she was a surprise. She never mentioned that her husband was missing, she put on a happy and cheerful demeanor. She reminded Katey of Susie in the best way, but on happy pills.

Mrs. Suarez and Javier were in Diego's bedroom with him, Rafael and Chabe.

Katey was dicing tomatoes to help Maria with lunch (they ate late there) when Maria suddenly broke her silence.

"So, you're the little American girl Javier was so in love with." she said it as a fact, not a question.

"W-what?" Katey asked.

"Oh, you know what I mean. You really had him wrapped around your little finger. Shame you had to go home. But, there are so many shames in life. It's your fault not at all."

"What do you mean, so many shames?" Katey asked. Maria shrugged.

"Well, look at Javi."

"What about him?"

"Oh, he could have been anything. We were so proud of him. He's so, so smart. He was top of his class before he had to leave school, did you know that?" she asked. Katey shook her head.

"He never told me."

"Well, no. He wouldn't. He's not the type to brag on anything. Especially not to you. Hw always felt inferior to you about that sort of thing."

"What?"

"Oh, you know. You were this smart, beautiful American girl with such a bright future, you seemed to have all the answers. On top of things. And there he was, a high-school drop-out. But if you'd have stayed, maybe…"

"Maybe what?"

"Well, he said once that being with you made him want to be better. Maybe if you would have stayed, he might have gone back to school. And if he hadn't been so stubborn and had gone with you to America, he would have gone to school. And he wouldn't have just been a dancer, either. He would have done what he really loved." Katey dumped the tomatoes she had been dicing into the pot Maria was stirring.

"What's that?"

"Before he started dancing, he wanted to be a journalist. He went around everywhere writing in his little notebook. He loved books. And when I started to work at the paper, he would visit me and he thought it was a neat idea. But he was eight, so that shows what he knew…but he would have been good. Whatever he does, he does good. That's Javier." she smiled.

"He never told me." Katey said again.

"Well, you know. He never wanted to quit school. But that was what he had to do. And he always felt like the man of the family, even with Carlos around," she stopped and sighed. "That poor boy. He always thought he could do so much. Especially after little Rafael showed up. He always tried to seem like he was fine. Especially after you left. He really got sad. He even didn't dance for a while. That kind of scared us," she shrugged and poured the creamy sauce into a bowel and picked up an avocado and a knife from the counter. Katey watched her slice up the avocado.

She knew why Javier adored his older sister so much. She was, if possible, even more talkative than he was. And she had the determination and the brightness that Katey now associated with all of the Suarez's.

"But it's good you're back. I haven't seen him this happy in a long time." Maria smiled at her and squeezed her hand. Katey smiled back, unsure of how to respond to this.

But she was saved when Javier walked in and asked about lunch.

"Do you need to be getting home or can you stay for lunch?" he asked Katey.

"Oh, are you sure there's room for me?"

"Yes, of course! Sit down!" Maria said. "Actually, go get Mama and the babies and tell them lunch is ready." Katey did what she was told.

"What did you two talk about?" Javier asked, laying out plates and tableware.

"You." she began to put the food on the big, butcher-block table in the center of the room. Javier looked up sharply.

"What did you say?" he asked suspiciously. Maria was his confidant; he told her everything. Well, almost everything. But knowing Maria, he knew that she could have spilled his worst choices and most heavy regrets without ever thinking of it.

"That you're pretty." Maria gave her brother a kiss on the cheek as Katey came into the room with Rafael on her hip.

At seven, Rafael was small, as his father and uncle had been at his age. But he was smart, and he picked up on things. He vaguely remembered this pretty blonde woman, even though he had been almost three when she left. He had heard his grandmother and daddy talking about her with Uncle Javier. He had heard her name enough to know her as 'K'.

Katey set him on the ground and he tugged at his aunt's skirt.

"Ria?" he asked in his childish lisp.

"Yes?" she bent down and picked him up. She held him at the sink as he washed his hands. When she set him down again, he tugged on Javier's pants. They were a little big, a hand-me-down from Carlos and they almost came down when Rafael pulled on them. He quickly tugged them back up before Katey saw his underwear. He the asked something in Spanish that Katey didn't understand. Javier laughed and said something in return. Rafael then ran over to Katey and hugged her around the waist. She laughed.

"What did you say?" she asked.

"He asked Javier if he married you if you would be his aunt like me." Maria said, lifting her son up and helping him wash his hands. Chabe, now eleven and perfectly capable of washing her hands by herself, crowded her sister at the sink and tried to wash her hands, too.

"And what did he say?" Javier shot his sister a look she didn't see.

"He said-- ahh! Javier Alejandro Suarez--" she started yelling in Spanish when Javier picked up a lime left lying on the counter and pegged it at her.

"Sorry. I was trying to get it in the sink." he smirked. She picked up a dishtowel and swatted at him with it, but he laughed and jumped away.

When they were eating lunch, the children were interrogating Katey. None of them knew enough English yet to ask her directly, but each would ask their mother or aunt or grandmother or uncle or brother, who would ask Katey and then tell them what she said.

"Diego and I want to know what you do." Maria said.

"I'm a journalist for the New York Times. I have my own column. That's why I'm here." Maria and her mother made impressed humming noises. Maria told her brother, in Spanish, that this was just the girl for him and why didn't he ask her to marry him? He blushed and told her to eat her soup. Katey listened to this exchange and then Mrs. Suarez asked her if she was still dancing. She shook her head.

"I haven't really found much time. Work takes a lot out of me." Mrs. Suarez nodded.

"Are you dating anyone?" Maria asked.

"Well, Katey better get going. Her sister will start to wonder." Javier said loudly. They excused themselves and he insisted on walking her home.

While they were walking through the Oceana, they heard music coming from a hallway off the lobby. They followed it to see the old dance instructor. A little older, but still fit.

"Hey! It's my little championship dancer! Katey, how are you?" he asked.

"Wow, you remembered my name! It's so good to see you, Charles." she gave him a hug. Charles shook Javier's hand amiably.

"So, now that you're back, are you two going to answer the dance contest again?"

"Oh! I--don't know. We were in this contest thing, but we lost, and…" Katey trailed off.

"It wasn't that original routine thing, was it?"

"Yes, why?" Javier asked.

"That was a complete scam. One of my pupils was in it, but it was a total joke. They people claimed to be dance officials, but all they wanted was the money."

Katey turned to Javier. "I thought you said that it didn't cost anything." he shrugged.

"It wasn't that much. I just wanted to help you out like you helped me."

"He wanted to _help you out_! What a lie!" Susie said over dinner that night. "He wanted _you_ is what he wanted. He is so in love with you, Kate!"

"He isn't. We're friends. Just friends." Katey picked at her pasta.

"Oh, _puh_-lease! You two are _so_ stupid. And so am I, for not telling you to go for it before. Which you totally should You're going to, aren't you?"

Katey stood up. "Suze, while I'd love to chat about our collective stupidity, I have to go work on my article." she went into her room and shut the door.

She sat at her desk and pulled out a pad of paper. She tapped her fore-finger on her pen. Her dad had given it to her when she had gotten her job at the Times. It was heavy, some sort of black stone with mother-of-pearl inlays.

"And by the way," Susie called from the kitchen. "Mom and Dad should be here soon." Katey jumped up and ran into the kitchen where her sister was doing dishes.

"**_WHAT!_**?"

"Yeah, I told you they were coming for Thanksgiving. How could you _forget_?"

"I gotta go." Katey ran out the door.

"Hi." she said. He was standing at his gate, where Katey had been yelling his name for ten minutes.

"I need your help."

"Come in." he ushered her inside to the little courtyard outside his house. They sat at the table and she fiddled with her hands.

"So. What's going on with your brother?" Javier shrugged. "He's staying with Maria. He won't tell anybody why he's back. And he won't go outside. Maria and I think he's running from the police, but Mama won't listen to us. She says 'he's family'." he mimicked his mother's voice. "Why did you need my help?"

"See, my parents are in town--"

"Ah. I see."

"See what?"

"Nothing. It's just that your parents always make you so nervous. That is not what I know, it is just that when you talk about them it's usually a sore subject for you. That's all."

"Well, I don't want to ask them for money, and I don't have enough to pay for the fine…I only need a little."

"I can lend you money."

"Oh, no! You don't have to do that!"

"Ah. But do you have a plan?"

"Well, that's where you come in. Charles today was talking about the dance contest. I picked up a flyer and it says that it's the first one since the one we were in. And I thought maybe if we could just get to the finals….I could have enough money to go home," she paused. "And whatever we win, we'd split, of course. But…"

"I don't need the money. I don't."

"But what about for school?" he looked at her and stood up, his back to her. He rubbed his hand down his face and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I take it you talked to my sister." Katey bit her lip and nodded, that he didn't see. "She told you I dropped out?"

"Yes."

"Then she told you I wanted to be a journalist."

"You never told me."

He shrugged. "It's like my brother-in-law's pictures. A lost art in Cuba now." he turned to face her. "But I want to, though. I do."

"Want to be a journalist?" he chuckled.

"No. Want to be in the dance contest."

She nodded. Then a moment of remembrance passed over her, and she pulled something out of her purse. It was a card, which she handed to him. He took it, confused.

"What is this for?" she shrugged.

"To thank you. I was hoping that you'd say yes. And…for all of the birthdays that I missed."

He opened the card. Inside it read :_ To Javier. Susie says nobody can make me smile like you. Katey._ No love. Just Katey. Inside there was also a little slip of paper.

"Oh, you show that to the guy at the counter. At the music store. Pete's Music Store."

"Pete's? Very American. Strange that it would be here now."

"I know. The name made me go in. And I saw something that I thought you might like. And besides, he owes me a favor."

"What'd you do?" Javier was intrigued.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she stood up and stretched her arms above her head. "And now I have to go home. My parents are coming to visit." she made a face. "And now I have to go be interrogated about work and men and my goals and why aren't I married yet? Oh, what fun."

He smiled. "I can walk you back."

"You'd better not."

"Why? You're parents don't like me?"

"Think, Javier. You got me pregnant. When I was 18."

"Ah. I see. Well, I shall just have to make them like me. See you tomorrow? 8 good?"

Katey nodded her head.

They were already there when she got home. She tried to slide in the door unnoticed, but her dad was sitting on the couch.

"Look who decided to say hi."

"Hi, Dad." It was as if she was eighteen again. She sat down next to her father and hugged him.

"So, what've you been doing besides work? Susie says you're almost never home."

"Ah, you know. Seeing if things are the same. How's work?"

"Work's good. Strange being back here, isn't it?"

Katey nodded. He had no idea. "How long are you guys staying?"

He shrugged, a typical Bert Miller pose. "Thanksgiving's tomorrow. Your mother says she likes it here so much that she might just stay. I'll come back for Christmas, then maybe we'll go home after New Years."

"Long time. 'Night, Dad."

She went into her room and shut the door. She stood against it and sighed.

"Hi." Susie said, making Katey jump a mile. She had had no idea that Susie was in the room.

"Do you know how long they're staying? _How_ am I going to dance with them around, asking about where I'm going?"

"So he said yes?"

She nodded and sat down on her bed. She kicked off her shoes and put her pillow over her head. She screamed into it; the sound muffled.

"That bad?" Katey nodded. She rolled over.

"I feel…eighteen." Susie smiled, both of them nostalgic. "I never thought that we would be back to this. Never thought that things would be just…the same as they were after we left."

"Can I tell you something?" Susie asked. Katey sat up and looked at her. "Even though…even though you two got separated and then he got you pregnant, I'm still really… jealous of you two. You were so in love. _So_ in love. And you still are, which is strange since you've been apart for so long. Love almost never lasts like that."

Katey, who had been quiet through all of her sister's little speech, nodded. Susie had said things like that before, and Katey had always listened, but she never tried to tell her sister how wrong she thought she was. How could that be worthy of jealousy? And she didn't love him anymore. How could she? It had been so long, and there were so many miles in between.

When Katey was getting dressed the next morning she heard the phone ringing. So she ran out into the living room (in full towel regalia) to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Miss Miller?" asked the person on the other end of the crackly connection.

"Yes?"

"Hello. This is Mr. Peters. I have a meeting, so I have to make this short, but I'm calling to ask you to stay in Cuba until we ask you back."

"What? _Why_?"

"I guess you haven't been reading the paper, since I hear they hate all American things there, but our readers have loved the articles you've been sending in. So we would like for you to keep sending us more. Now less on the political aspect, more on the cultural. Will you stay?"

"Y-yes." said a flabbergasted Katey."

"Thank you. I hope to speak to you soon. Good-day." and he hung up.

She was _stuck._

"Stop that." Javier growled at her.

Katey laughed. "I'm sorry. It was just so funny. I've never seen you act like that before. You _bullrushed_ him." she sniggered.

"I have no idea what that means, but judging from the sound of your voice, I didn't do it." he said as he dipped Katey. She laughed.

Javier had been waiting for her at La Rosa Negra when some guy ran by her and stole her purse. Javier chased him down and got her purse back.

"It was just…such an act of masculinity that I've never seen in you before." Katey couldn't stop laughing; the picture of him jumping the guy still fresh in her mind. Javier rolled his eyes and changed the music.

"Can you _please_ be serious now?" he asked. She nodded, trying to keep a straight face.

After three hours, Katey had to excuse herself for lunch, which she had promised her mother she would spend with her. On her way to the hotel's restaurant, she ran into Dave.

"Kate?" he asked. He was the only on who ever called her Kate. She despised all sorts of nicknames, but she liked Dave too much at first to ask him to stop, and if she asked him now, he would ask why she hadn't said so before.

Javier had known her well enough to know that all Katey liked was being called Katey, end of story. _Stop it._ she told herself. _Stop comparing men to Javier._

"Hey. I thought it was you. Question," he said, in his usual perky way. "You're In suit 20, right?" Katey nodded. "Well, I just got my room switched. Looks like we'll be neighbors until I go home." he smiled, so so did she.

"When's that?"

"When I finish my piece of February, whichever comes first. You?"

Katey shrugged. "My boss called and asked me to stay until he wants me back. So I really have no idea. I--I better go. I'm meeting my mother for lunch." she waved and started to the restaurant.

The two of them met at the restaurant in the hotel. Her mother was sipping a cosmopolitan when Katey got there.

"It's so nice to see you, sweetie." Jeanne squeezed her daughter's hand. Katey smiled.

"What are we doing for dinner?" Katey asked.

"Susie volunteered to make a nice, traditional Thanksgiving dinner for all of us. So please be home by nine. So, who is this boy Susie tells me you're seeing? Dave?"

Katey sighed. Trust Susie to let something slip.

"Well, he's really just…"

"He came by this morning when you were out and asked for you and Susie. He and I had just a lovely little talk. And he's a writer! You two must get along so well. And I've even read some of his work. A few months back he had an article published in that women's magazine that Boo Stevens sends me. How long have you two been seeing each other?"

Katey was thinking. Should she tell about Javier and that they were only friends, or lie and say that she and Dave were still dating?

"Katey?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I asked how long you two have been seeing each other."

"About a year." Katey downed her drink.

"How did he wind up here?"

"He's writing a piece on Cuba same as me." Mrs. Miller nodded. She seemed to be fighting with herself to ask something.

"How's Javier?" she asked, pained.

"I don't know. I haven't been to see him." Katey lied. A huge, huge lie. But nothing else would have been acceptable. Mrs. Miller was just starting to trust her daughter again. To know that Katey was edging herself into the safe, little box that she had built up around herself and then destroyed so completely all those years ago. Katey had been perfect, and her mother liked it that way. Now, she was finally getting back there. A good, successful boyfriend with a high-profile family. A good job. She didn't want Katey in contact with Javier at all. To Mrs. Miller, everything that had made Katey different was his fault, and he was bad for her daughter.

And since nothing but a lie would be acceptable, she lied. It would never come out, after all. Once she won the money, she would go home. And there would never be a mention of Javier again.


	12. Thanksgiving

Chapter 10, Thanksgiving Is A Nightmare, Whether You're Cuban, Cooking, Or Just Plain Cursed.

That night when Katey and Javier finished dancing, they were sitting at the bar of the club, eating pretzels and watching the club fill up.

"Plans for dinner?" Javier asked. Katey crunched a pretzel between her teeth and nodded.

"Big, huge, exciting, life changing ones. With my parents and Susie. They're letting her cook. But I have to be home by nine." Katey rolled her eyes.

"Why don't you have dinner with me first?" Javier asked suddenly. "I mean, not just me. Maria's making us dinner. My whole family. She and Mama would love to see you again, everyone would."

Katey surprised the both of them by saying yes. And that was why, ten minutes later, they were walking into Javier's house. His mother gave her a big hug and a smile.

"Hello, Katey." Maria said from the kitchen. Rafael came running up to Katey and hugged her around the knees.

"K! K!" he said. Katey smiled. Then his father came into the room and barked something at his son that sent him skittering away.

"Hello, Carlos." Katey said politely. She hated Carlos for abandoning his family and his son, but she'd never let him think that. He nodded at her and said something to Javier, who, as far as Katey could understand, (Susie was teaching her to curse in Spanish) told him to go screw himself. Javier took Katey's hand and pulled her away from Carlos, into his room. Katey sat on the bed and looked around. The room was sparsely furnished with only a desk and dresser besides the bed. A small victrolla, looking hardly used, sat in the corner with records stacked on top.

"I see you're a minimalist." Katey noted. Javier shrugged.

"It's hard to leave things lying around when you have a seven-year-old running around. I keep most of my things under my bed." He pulled out a big box of assorted clutter and put it on the bed, "Just junk."

"Can I see?" Katey asked. He nodded and she started to leaf through his 'junk'. It was mostly paper things, old report cards from school and notebooks that he'd written in. Katey couldn't read most of it, but she could tell that he had had a lot to say. His marks in school were good, very good. Top marks in everything but math, which was average. There was a small photo album, with his name written across the cover in blue pen. Inside were a few pictures, put in sloppily a without much glue, so they were falling out.

The pictures all had dates under them, again in smudged blue ink. What looked like a baby picture of him; his sister was holding him on a couch while his brother sat next to her, looking angry. A picture Katey supposed was one of Maria's wedding pictures, because she was beaming in a white dress next to a very tall, skinny man with glasses. Him at seventeen holding baby Rafael. Katey smiled, it was an adorable picture. And at the end of the album, she was surprised to see a picture of herself.

She was lying on the beach on her big, Channel sunglasses and floppy hat, just looking at the ocean. "Huh." she said. And when she turned the page; the last picture; her. She had Javier, a picture that she had never seen before and didn't even remember posing for. The two of them were standing against the balcony of her family's apartment when they had lived at the Oceana. Her hair was damp and was being picked up by the breeze coming off the ocean. He was standing behind her and had his arms were wrapped around her waist and he had his head on her shoulder. He was whispering something in her ear, making her laugh. They both had their eyes closed in a dreamy, serene way. It was the most flattering picture that Katey had ever seen of herself. She looked…happy.

"Where did you get this?" she asked. Javier, who had been sorting through his music, looked up.

"Susie gave it to me before you left," he looked back at his music, carefully averting his eyes from her. Just then Chabe came into the room and announced dinner.

_Saved by the little sister once again._ Though Javier as Katey and his family sat down at the table. The adults, trying to be polite, were speaking English but Chabe, Rafael and Diego were oblivious. They were sitting bunched together at the end of the table and the boys were throwing food at each other. Chabe had decided that eleven was too old for something so childish and was sculpting her rice into something resembling the Eiffel tower. Katey, who was sitting next to her, complimented her on it and said that it looked like the real thing. Chabe understood enough English to blush and say thank-you.

Katey was still intimidating to her; the beautiful American girl that Mama and Maria would talk about to Javier.

Javier tried to ignore the fact that his brother was giving Katey the evil eye over his food. Actually, he had been trying to completely ignore his brother since his prophetic return. He was staying at home, and he had been staying inside during the day. He was sleeping on the couch and would only go out late at night.

As he was walking Katey home, he was thinking about the resolution he had made the night before while he was out.

When he was nineteen, before he had met Katey, he had been fighting with Carlos one night and went out walking. Carlos had been going out and left Rafael with him (again) when he was getting ready for a date and he had to stand up some poor girl. (Again.)

After Carlos came home (the sun was coming up) Javier stormed out the door without a word and went walking around the neighborhood. He was walking past the Erelezs' empty house (the father had been killed by Batiste's forces when he resisted arrest) and saw something moving in the shadows next to the house. Thinking it was someone following him, he disappeared into the shadows in hot pursuit of whoever it was.

It turned out to be nobody (his sleep-deprived mid was playing tricks), but when he got behind the house he found himself in Mrs. Erelez's garden. It was beautiful, with a little pond with a little dwarf willow tree that hung with low branches above it. Javier climbed into the low hanging branches and sat there. He dipped his bare toes into the cool pond water and rested against the smooth bark.

It had become his place to think. When he was stressed or angry or feeling especially bitter (he felt bitter a lot lately) he would sit there and think.

He was sitting there and watching the sun come up when he made up his mind to ask Katey on a date. The fact that they were still just friends drove him insane. They had made love, and now she was almost pretending that it had never happened. Did she harbor some deep-felt resentment towards him? Since her return they had shared a few awkward kisses that she later refused to acknowledge. Did she not love him?

He had been pondering this when he looked out the ally way and saw two kids in the ally, holding hands and talking. They had to be about eighteen. Somehow, they reminded Javier of him and Katey, the way they used to be. How could he doubt what they had? She had to love him.

And so he was taking a chance, something that he had stopped doing lately.

"Katey…do you…" he started, unsure of where to go. It had been a long time since he had done this. She looked up, half smiling. He looked at her, smiling, and hugged her. She didn't pull away like he thought she would. Instead she rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. She wrapped her arms around him in a small squeeze. He touched her glossy curls and brushed a kiss on her cheek.

It wasn't an I love you or a promise, but it was a start. She pulled away.

"I don't want to be late for dinner." she said. He nodded. She held his hand the way back, and she kissed him on the cheek and waved good-bye when they got to the large lit-up entrance of the Oceana.

When she got into the apartment she saw her mother in the kitchen, not Susie. She said a quick hi before disappearing into her room. Susie was there, reading _Seventeen_ with a pair of scissors, cutting out outfits that she liked.

"My birthday's coming up. I'm in college. I have no money." she said, seeing Katey's face.

"Why aren't you cooking?" Katey asked.

"I forgot to make the sweet potato pie the way Mom likes it, so she banished me and is doing it all herself. What a baby," she flipped the page, attacked it with the scissors, and set the glossy scrap of paper on a pile of many others. "Oh, and I almost cut off my finger _again. _She overreacted."

"You're cursed. That's it." Katey said.

"Were you with Javier? You look happy."

"Yes. We were dancing and then I had dinner with him." Katey pulled off her shoes and threw them on the floor and picked up a magazine from the bedside table. She flipped through it but was aware of Susie watching her intently.

"What?"

"Like a d-d-d-d-date? You two were on a _date_!"

"No. we ate with his family. And I was in his room, but that was something else."

"You were in his _bedroom_? Were you on his _bed_? Were your loins burning with your desire for him?" she was practically yelling now.

"Susie!" Katey hissed. If their parents heard, they'd go crazy. Susie fell over, giggling.

"Burning loins!" she laughed.

"_Must_ you be so childish? We're friends."

"And ex-lovers," Susie quieted down. "If you had told him about the baby, you two would be married right now. He would have come and you two would have gotten married and you'd be happy. _He makes you happy._"

"Stop being so prophetic. I can handle my own love life, thank you."

Suddenly a loud scream came from the kitchen. The girls ran out into the living room to see their mother standing in the doorway of the kitchen, her hands covering her mouth.

"Susie!" she said. "Something's _wrong_ with your oven. I turned it on and _flames_ spurted out. And now my turkey is _smoldering_!" Susie rolled her eyes and looked into the kitchen. The oven was, indeed smoking, but the flames were minimal and looked self-contained. The three Miller women looked at each other. Bert was out with an old work friend and wouldn't be back for an hour, and none of them had ever had to deal with something like this.

Just then Dave poked his head into the apartment.

"I heard screams." he said, always dependable.

"We're in here." Susie said. "And please bring with you a fire extinguisher."

When he came back he safely stopped the impending fire and Susie clapped.

"You did it! I _never_ would have been able to do that. Now you need a name, a special name…" Susie thought, her finger pressed to her mouth. Suddenly she smiled and yelled happily. "Flame boy!"

"We're cursed. Us Miller women," Katey shook her head. "When we cook. We cut off a finger, or we break the oven, or we…I've never cooked, actually. So never mind."

Before and maybe while this was all happening, Javier was walking home. He passed the dark and almost empty street corners humming happily to himself. Maybe he was getting somewhere with Katey. Thinking of this, he tripped. He put his hands out to stop himself. The rough stone scraped the skin of his palms and drew blood. He had also hit his kneecap. Javier sat on the ground rubbing it until it felt better.

"Hello, Mr. Suarez." said a voice above him. He looked up to see three masked men standing over him.

"Wha--" one of the men put a knife to his throat and another dragged him into the dark, empty ally way. Resisting, he thrashed and lashed his arm out, but the men were all much bigger than him.

One of the men held a cloth over his mouth. Javier tried not to breath, but hungry lungs obey no one. Something, some sort of powder in the cloth made him go limp. The men all sniggered. They sounded almost recognizable, like old friends whose voices he had forgotten.

"Stay away from the American. She is not worth it." they shoved him up against a wall and one of them held his arms behind his back.

"Hmmph. Yeah. I'll be sure to remember that next time we do it." Javier mumbled, his voice almost gone. The man holding him tightened his grip.

"We mean it," he whispered in his ear. "Stay away from her."

And he let him fall. A familiar swagger was all he saw of the men walking away before everything went black.

"Dave, would you like to have dinner with us?" Mrs. Miller asked. "I'm sure we'll be able to get a turkey from room service, and then we'll be all set!" she said happily. Dave, who had told Katey earlier that he already had plans with friends, accepted.

"I just need to go wash up." he said.

"Use the girls' bathroom. And take your time, dinner won't be ready for a while." Mrs. Miller smiled before

Katey went out and sat on the balcony. She curled up in the white deck chair and pulled her hair out of the bun and let the wind reclaim it. She could just see a black sliver of the ocean, rippling darkly. Above it hung the moon, opalescent in the clear and starry sky. A cool breeze form the ocean cooled her skin and she closed her eyes, listening to the quiet and the waves. A bird chirped somewhere, and then she opened her eyes to see it sitting on the railing, looking at her, it's head cocked to the side. It was a little brown finch, just like the ones that sometimes landed on her terrace at home.

"Hey, little guy," she said. "You from New York? You lost? Me too." it let out a little chirp before flying away.

Katey went inside, and saw Dave standing at her desk, reading something. He looked up when she walked in and jumped.

"Oh. I--I wasn't reading it. I was…gum. I was gum." he said.

"You were gum?" Katey asked.

"Yes. I was--no. I needed gum. I was--"

"Reading my sister's diary." Katey observed as she got closer.

"No! I was…yeah. Katey _please_ don't tell her. I think she's just getting to like me. Dave begged. He ran a hand through his curly blonde hair. He adjusted his tie, one that Katey had always hated. Electric pink was not Dave's color. It made him look--well never mind. You know what I mean.

Katey sighed. She told Susie everything, and this was definitely something Susie would want to know. She bit her lip, considering.

"I'll do _anything_. Come on Katey, everybody can use a favor."

"What _kind_ of favor?" she asked suspiciously.

He dipped his head, and the light from the twin Tiffany lamps on the desk illuminated his bright blue eyes and showed Katey how earnest about this he was.

"Anything, Katey. Doesn't matter how big." she thought.

"Okay. I got something. But I don't think you'll want to do it…"

"Really! Anything!"

"Uh, to make it short, it did something dumb. And now I have to fix it. But I can't tell my parents where I am. So if I could just tell them that I'm with you, then it'd be okay."

Dave smiled. "What'd you _do_?"

"Nothing. That's the favor."

"Sure. I just…I really like Susie. So…" he screwed up his face, trying to think of how to voice something.

"I keep my promises, Dave. Don't worry."

"It's not that.. I'm just trying to think of what you might have done. So, for now, friends? Comrades in arms?" he smiled. She smiled. He held out his hand, and she shook it.

"Friends. And…you're like my brother, Dave. I know we didn't really work, and I'm sorry, but I really--"

"Kate! It's fine. Completely fine. I'm over it. So, I'm like your brother, huh? Does that mean I can scare all of the guys that you date? 'Cause I can look _real_ threatening with a shotgun in my hand." he smiled; she shook her head, a look of amusement on her face. Susie would be lucky to have him.

Javier woke with a headache like a drop of water had been pinging onto his forehead for hours. Not that it had, but he had heard somewhere that the Chinese had been quite fond of that kind of torture. Eventually the water would bore into the head of the unlucky soul, and then bore into their brain and kill them.

He dragged his aching body along the dim streets. He cursed the nine blocks that he had to walk home. The streets now tended to empty after dark, and the only people that heard his cursing were a poor homeless man on a bench and a sad teenage girl with a tiny baby in her arms, who also looked homeless. When he passed the girl, she looked up.

She wore a face that so many victims of the revolution had. She had once been happy and beautiful, but now she looked sad and worried. Her face did not look well with the hunger her body was obviously going through, and she tried to give him a small smile as he walked by. He nodded to her.

Then he stopped and back peddled. She was sitting in an ally, singing quietly to her baby, a small thing with blonde hair. Strange; almost no Cuban babies were born with blond hair. He knelt down in front of her, much to her surprise.

"Hello." he said.

"Hello." she moved her baby closer to herself. She was obviously afraid of him. He felt a tiny pang of pain in his stomach; he wasn't used to people being afraid of him.

"No, no, I mean you no harm. I was just surprised to see your baby. Most babies here don't have blonde hair."

The girl shrugged. "Her father was American. Lost in the revolution months ago." she blinked back tears.

"What of your parents? Don't they help you?" Javier usually was never this nosey, but there was something about this girl.

"They have enough to worry about." clearly no lost love there.

"What is your name?" he asked. The girl tugged at one curly lock. Her hair was black and thick; she looked like she needed a good bath.

"Rosa. And this is Catie Isabella Luarez Jefferson." she smiled, holding her baby so that Javier could see her face. She clearly loved the baby desperately, all she did was smile at her little baby.

"Catie? I know a girl by that name," he paused. "You remind me of her a bit. She is blonde, like Catie. Do you mind me asking of your husband?"

Rosa shook her head. She seemed as if she had once been carefree and wild. She gave off spirit. "We met because he couldn't dance. Eh, they all said it wouldn't work. Too much difference. Mama didn't like it when

we got married. And Castro didn't like it when my husband tried to off his wingman." Rosa pursed her lips.

"Wingman?"

"Michael, my husband, was no fan of Che Guevera. My brother died at his hands, as did Michael's father. We both came from families…opposed to our new government," she shrugged, and then peered at Javier more closely.

"You're the Suarez boy, aren't you? I know you. You used to come into the club. The Katey you love? She is back, yes? You two went well together. I saw."

"How could you remember? That was…years ago."

Rosa smiled. "Ah, it's not very often some skinny white American girl is queen of La Rosa Negra. It's memorable."

Javier looked at Rosa but he didn't really remember her. There had been lots of people in the crowd the night that he and Katey were king and queen. This girl was very pretty, and neither she nor her baby belonged on the streets. Now that he knew her, he was involved.

"Do you need anything? This is no place to raise a baby. And there is room on my house. I could help you find a job…"

"No, no. I will provide. But thank you. You have big heart, Mr. Suarez." Now she definitely reminded him of Katey. She hated to accept favors, too.

"No. No. I insist. If you won't stay with me, my sister has room. At least stay the night at my home. There's room." Javier said, trying to make this girl understand he only wanted to help. But she shook her head.

"Fine. I didn't want to say this, but what would Michael think of you raising his baby on the street, eh? If he can't provide for you, he would at least want you to be _safe_!"

She looked at him, her dark eyes flashing. Then she looked at her baby. She was sleeping, but she opened her eyes for a moment and looked at her mother. Tiny blue eyes. Rosa looked at her sleeping daughter, then at Javier.

"Thank you, Mr. Suarez. But just for tonight," he held out a hand and helped her up. She was a petite girl and came up to his chin, but she looked straight into his face. "You are a very kind man. And I will find some way to repay you."

"Not necessary. Come on."

He guided her the way home, and she asked about his limp.

"Eh, twisted my ankle dancing. That's all. This is me." he touched her elbow when they got to his house.

"Are you sure your mother will be okay with this? And the rest of your family?" she asked tentatively.

"It's fine, it's fine." he said, ushering her into the courtyard. He locked the gate behind him and opened the door of the house.

"Javi? Javi, is that you? His mother called from Chabe's room.

"Yes, and I brought--"

"Katey? Oh, good." his mother stepped into the living room and saw them.

"Sort of." Javier said.


End file.
